Internet Studies
Instructor: Mr. Dunfee
Read About Gopher
 
 

 

This is what a Gopher Menu looks like when viewed using Netscape.
You are viewing the "Mother Gopher" menu:

 
 

  • What is Gopher?
    • Gopher is a system of linked menus with pointers (links) to Internet resources and other menus.  A Gopher menu is pictured above.
    • Each Gopher menu is provided by a special piece of software on a distant computer called a Gopher server. A single Gopher server may contain many Gopher menus.
    • Each item on a Gopher menu is a link to either a text file, a program, a telnet host, a news group, or another Gopher menu.
    • Some Gopher menus are organized by topic. Others are organized by geographic location.
      • If you know the topic you want to search for, such as "butterflies" for example, you can use a topic menu to find the information you want.
      • If you know the location of what you're searching for, such as "the curriculum of the University of Lima, Peru", you can use a geographical menu to find South American and then Peru. And then switch to a topic menu to find information you want. But be careful! Information on a computer in Peru is going to be in Spanish--not English!
    • That portion of the Internet that is accessible using Gopher is called Gopherspace.
    • To use Gopher, you must have another special piece of software on your computer called a Gopher client. The Gopher client allows you to see the Gopher menus and make selections from them.
  • History, past and present
    • Gopher was developed by students and faculty at the University of Minnesota.
    • It was first made available to nonprofit institutions in 1991.
    • Because the University of Minnesota is the originator of Gopher, the top menu on the Gopher there is called Mother Gopher. It's URL is gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu/. It contains a registry of all other Gopher menus in the world.
    • Gopher server software is now used in over 300 nonprofit and commercial sites. The number is always increasing.
  • How to use Gopher
    • To use Gopher, you need an Internet connection and a Gopher client. Some clients that support Gopher for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 are
      • Netscape
      • Internet Explorer
      • WS Gopher (available as shareware)
      • BC Gopher (freeware, not as good as WS Gopher)
      • HGopher (an enhanced version of Gopher called Gopher+ that allows viewing of multimedia instead of just text).
    • In this course, we will use Netscape, of course.
    • To use Netscape as a Gopher client
      • Type in the URL of a Gopher server (or click on a link to a Gopher server, if such a link is available).
      • Select from the list of menu items appearing on the Gopher menu.
      • To select in Netscape, just single-click on the item of your choice.
      • Items are coded by icons on the left of each menu item. These are a few of the icons you will see:
        • a text document that can be viewed on screen (usually). Notice the name of the file. If it ends with ".txt" or ".doc", or if you just see a title, you're probably okay. But if it ends in something like ".mid", it is probably not viewable. (".mid" files are sound files.)
        • another Gopher menu.
        • a search tool, such as Veronica.
        • a link to a telnet session.
        • an image file (BMP, JPG, GIF, etc.).
        • a video file.
        • a compressed file.
      • Keep selecting until you find what you want.
      • Need to go back? Click the Back button, or right-click somewhere on the Netscape screen and select Back that way.
      • Very often, the first item on a Gopher menu will be an "index" of the contents of the menu, often having the word "about" in the description, with detailed explanations of each menu item. It is often helpful to look at this item first if the descriptive names on the menu are not enough.
      • If you're good at it, you can access any Gopher server in the world by starting with one Gopher server and selecting the right sequence of menu items.
  • Veronica, Gopher's Search Tool
    • You've seen search engines on the World Wide Web. The first such search tool for Gopher, and still probably the best and most powerful, is called Veronica, named after the character from Archie comic books (a comic book series of the 1950's and 1960's).
    • Veronica is located at the University of Minnesota Gopher site. To use it,
      1. click on the address below.
      2. select " Other Gopher and Information Servers".
      3. select " Search titles in Gopherspace using veronica",
      4. select on the options on the resulting Veronica menu,
      5. enter one or more search key words,
      6. press the Enter key.
  • A List of Gopher Sites for Windows Users