Frequent use of animated GIF files dates back to Netscape Navigator in the 1990’s (remember twirling “under construction” signs for web sites?). These days, animated GIF files are most often used for meme display or in short video clips where a video file might not be playable.
Some more modern microcontrollers with a larger amount of memory and fast access to a local display can meet the requirements for animated GIF playback, as long as the file size and frame rate (the time between frames in the changing image) is not too small.
The CircuitPython gifio module is an addition to CircuitPython 8.1.0 and later versions providing GIF playback capability.
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