8.1  GOPHERS


Even with tools like Hytelnet and archie, telnet and ftp can still be 
frustrating.  There are all those telnet and ftp addresses to remember.  
Telnet services often have their own unique commands.  And, oh, those 
weird directory and file names! 

But now that the Net has become a rich repository of information, people 
are developing ways to make it far easier to find and retrieve 
information and files. Gophers and Wide-Area Information Servers (WAISs) 
are two services that are helping to make the internet far easier to 
use.

Both gophers and WAISs essentially take a request for information and 
then scan the Net for it, so you don't have to.  Both also work through 
menus -- instead of typing in some long sequence of characters, you just 
move a cursor to your choice and hit enter.  Gophers even let you select 
files and programs from ftp sites this way. 

Let's first look at gophers (named for the official mascot of thE 
University of Minnesota, where the system was developed).  Most 
public-access sites now have gophers online.  To use one, type 
 
     gopher
 
at the command prompt and hit enter.  If you know your site does not have 
a gopher, or if nothing happens when you type that, telnet to 
 
     consultant.micro.umn.edu
 
At the login prompt, type
 
     gopher
 
and hit enter.  You'll be asked what type of terminal emulation you're 
using, after which you'll see something like this: 
 
                    Internet Gopher Information Client v1.03                   
                                                                               
                    Root gopher server: gopher.micro.umn.edu                   
                                                                               
 -->  1.  Information About Gopher/
      2.  Computer Information/    
      3.  Discussion Groups/                                                   
      4.  Fun & Games/  
      5.  Internet file server (ftp) sites/
      6.  Libraries/
      7.  News/     
      8.  Other Gopher and Information Servers/
      9.  Phone Books/            
      10. Search lots of places at the U of M  
      11. University of Minnesota Campus Information/ 
 
Press ? for Help, q to Quit, u to go up a menu                        Page: 1/1
 
Assuming you're using VT100 or some other VT emulation, you'll be able to 
move among the choices with your up and down arrow keys.  When you have 
your cursor on an entry that looks interesting, just hit enter, and 
you'll either get a new menu of choices, a database entry form, or a text 
file, depending on what the menu entry is linked to (more on how to tell 
which you'll get in a moment). 

Gophers are great for exploring the resources of the Net.  Just keep 
making choices to see what pops up.  Play with it; see where it takes 
you.  Some choices will be documents.  When you read one of these and 
either come to the end or hit a lower-case q to quit reading it, you'll 
be given the choice of saving a copy to your home directory or e-mailing 
it to yourself.  Other choices are simple databases that let you enter a 
word to look for in a particular database.  To get back to where you 
started on a gopher, hit your u key at a menu prompt, which will move you 
back "up" through the gopher menu structure (much like "cd .." in ftp). 

Notice that one of your choices above is "Internet file server (ftp) 
sites."  Choose this, and you'll be connected to a modified archie 
program -- an archie with a difference.  When you search for a file 
through a gopher archie, you'll get a menu of sites that have the file 
you're looking for, just as with the old archie.  Only now, instead of 
having to write down or remember an ftp address and directory, all you 
have to do is position the cursor next to one of the numbers in the menu 
and hit enter.  You'll be connected to the ftp site, from which you can 
then choose the file you want.  This time, move the cursor to the file 
you want and hit a lower-case s.  You'll be asked for a name in your home 
directory to use for the file, after which the file will be copied to 
your home system.  Unfortunately, this file-transfer process does not yet 
work with all public-access sites for computer programs and compressed 
files.  If it doesn't work with yours, you'll have to get the file the 
old-fashioned way, via anonymous ftp. 

In addition to ftp sites, there are hundreds of databases and libraries 
around the world accessible through gophers.  There is not yet a common 
gopher interface for library catalogs, so be prepared to follow the 
online directions more closely when you use gopher to connect to one. 

Gopher menu entries that end in a / are gateways to another menu of 
options.  Entries that end in a period are text, graphics or program 
files, which you can retrieve to your home directory (or e-mail to 
yourself or to somebody else).  A line that ends in  or  
represents a request you can make to a database for information.  The 
difference is that  entries call up one-line interfaces in which you 
can search for a keyword or words, while  brings up an electronic 
form with several fields for you to fill out (you might see this in 
online "White Pages" directories at colleges). 

Gophers actually let you perform some relatively sophisticated Boolean 
searches.  For example, if you want to search only for files that contain 
the words "MS-DOS" and "Macintosh," you'd type 

     ms-dos and macintosh

(gophers are not case-sensitive) in the keyword field.  Alternately, if 
you want to get a list of files that mention either "MS-DOS" or 
"Macintosh," you'd type 

     ms-dos or macintosh