>From bronze!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!spool.mu.edu!agate!bionet!NIC.FUNET.FI!harper Tue Feb 11 10:20:18 EST 1992 Article: 1984 of bionet.software Path: bronze!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!spool.mu.edu!agate!bionet!NIC.FUNET.FI!harper From: harper@NIC.FUNET.FI (Rob Harper) Newsgroups: bionet.software Subject: GOPHER Message-ID: <9202111446.AA06804@genbank.bio.net> Date: 11 Feb 92 14:38:45 GMT Article-I.D.: genbank.9202111446.AA06804 Sender: daemon@genbank.bio.net Distribution: bionet Lines: 164 We have been using gopher on our convex to provide online help for our applications packages. It is radical awesome as BIFF would say. We've got it. We like it. A new newsgroup alt.gopher has been created to handle discussions. Check it out!!! %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% CLIP & RECOMMENDATION %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% The newsgroup alt.gopher has been created to for developers and users of the Gopher software developed at the University of Minnesota. Here is our little gopher spiel, in case you're interested: What is the Internet Gopher? The Internet Gopher is an information distribution system. It combines features of elec- tronic bulletin board services and databases, allowing you to either browse a hierarchy of information, or to search for the information you need using full-text indexes. Gopher can also store references to public telnet sessions, CSO phone book servers, finger-protocol information, and sounds. The Internet Gopher software was devel- oped by the Computer and Information Services department of the University of Minnesota. The software is freely distributable. What Information is Available? There is much diverse information stored on various Gopher servers: computer documentation, phone books, news, weather, library databases, books, recipes, etc. We use Gopher at the Microcomputer Helpline to quickly answer questions using our large user support database. In addition to our own information, we have over 6000 information items from various hardware and software ven- dors. While it's a good tool for our own internal use, anyone may search the database. This means fewer calls to our helpline, resulting in better, faster service. The Gopher system can keep track of campus phone book servers. Currently you can search seventeen University phone books. Quite a bit of news is in Gopher. Two campus newspapers: The Minnesota Daily and The Daily Texan are on line and searchable. National Weather Forecasts for the entire nation are also available. For Clarinet subscribers we provide a full UPI news feed that's indexed hourly. The electronic books published by the Gutenberg Project are available in Gopher. These include classics such as Moby Dick and refer- ence works such as the CIA World Fact Book. The Hacker's Dictionary and the Periodic Table of the Elements are available too. Gopher users can also get at information that is only accessible on terminal based infor- mation systems. Gopher can store links to these sites. You can easily start a telnet session to many libraries and information servers with the press of a key or click of the mouse. Naturally we have some fun information as well: humor, recipes, jokes, etc. There's a wide variety of data, with more coming on-line all the time from a multitude of sites on the Inter- net. How does it work? Information is stored on multiple servers, connected together in a network. This allows for capacity to be added to the system in small, inexpensive increments. It also allows the Gopher system to cross institutional boundaries, since other servers can be "linked" into the sys- tem easily. Large indexes can be spread over multiple servers, resulting in significant speedups. You may use the PC, Macintosh, NeXT, Xwindows, or Unix Terminal Clients to access the Gopher system. The client connects with a "root" gopher server which is an entry point into the Gopher. There can be many different entry points. This allows a certain amount of freedom in organizing the information. Local or fre- quently accessed information can be put higher in the hierarchy for different organizations (i.e. the Library root server would have a library search at the top level, whereas the Music root server would have it lower) At the initial connection, the root server sends back a listing of the objects in its top level directory. These objects can be: Directories, Text Files, CSO Phone Books, Search Engines, Telnet References or Sounds Each object has associated with it a User displayable title, a unique "selector string", a hostname, and a port number. The client then presents the user with the list of titles, and lets them make a selection. The user does not have to remember hostnames, ports, or selector strings. The client takes care of this. After the user makes a selection, the cli- ent contacts the given host at the given port and sends the selector string associated with the object. The client will do different things, depending on what type of object was selected. The client may display a new directory, show a text file, or prompt the user to search a CSO phone book. This process continues until the user decides to quit. Since gopher uses a simple protocol, we and others were able to develop clients and servers on many platforms quickly and easily. How do I access Gopher? Client software for Macintoshes, PCs, NeXTs, X Windows, and UNIX terminals is available for anonymous ftp from boombox.micro.umn.edu in the directory /pub/gopher Or, if you just want a quick look at the UNIX terminal curses client, telnet to the machine consultant.micro.umn.edu and log in as: gopher We highly recommend running the client on your local personal computer or workstation. These local clients have a better response time and an easier user interface. Contacting Gopher People. The University of Minnesota Gopher Development Team can be reached by sending internet e-mail to gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu Address paper mail to: Internet Gopher Team 132 Shepherd Labs 100 Union St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 (612) 625-1300 We also operate a mailing-list called gopher-news that contains announcements of new software and new information available in Gopher. To subscribe send an internet e-mail message to: gopher-news-request@boombox.micro.umn.edu -- | Paul Lindner | lindner@boombox.micro.umn.edu | Slipping into madness | GopherSpace | Computer & Information Services | is good for the sake | Engineer | University of Minnesota | of comparision. ///// / / / /////// / / / / / / / / //// / / / / / / / /