The Phenakistoscope

The animated GIF ain’t got nothin’ on the phenakistoscope, a device from 1841 that created animated scenes within a series of spinning discs.

Via the Richard Balzer Collection

Via the Richard Balzer Collection

Created by Joseph Plateau, the Phenakistoscope was a device thought to be the first mechanism for true animation. Via Juxtapoz:

The phenakistoscope used a spinning disc attached vertically to a handle. Arrayed around the disc’s center were a series of drawings showing phases of the animation, and cut through it were a series of equally spaced radial slits. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the disc’s reflection in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept them from simply blurring together, so that the user would see a rapid succession of images that appeared to be a single moving picture.