9.5  LYNX, MEET GOPHER


One of the nice things about Lynx is that you can also use it to reach 
non-Web resources, from FTP and telnet sites to gophers.  This means that 
you can use it as your one-stop interface for Internet information 
services.

Recall earlier how you have to type "http://" as part of the URLs for Web 
sites.  There are similar prefixes for other types of services, for 
example: gopher://, ftp:// and telnet://.

Telnet is the easiest to use.  Say you want to connect to the Electronic 
Periodic Table of the Elements at camm57.caos.kun.nl.  In Lynx, hit a 
lower-case g and then type:

     telnet://camm57.caos.kun.nl

and hit enter, and you'll be connected.  The one caveat with telnet sites 
is that many have their own user interfaces, so keys may do different 
things than they would if you were connected to a Web site.  If you're 
ever stuck on a telnet site and can't get out, hit control-] (your 
"control" and "]" keys at the same time) to return to Lynx.

Connecting to an FTP site works basically the same: for example, to get 
to ftp.uu.net, type a lower-case g and then

     ftp://ftp.uu.net

You won't have to log in, though, which is nice.  And once you're in, 
you'll be able to navigate by making selections off a menu, rather than 
having to type any Unix commands.  If you already know a particular 
file's name and path on a site, you could even go to it directly, by 
hitting a lower-case g and then typing in site name and path, like this:
       
     ftp://ftp.uu.net/systems/ibmpc/msdos/simtel/zip/pkz204g.exe

Getting to a gopher works basically the same, except you'd substitute 
"gopher://" for "telnet://" or "ftp://."  Where it does get tricker with 
gophers, however, is if you want to get to a specific document or 
directory on a gopher.  This is because gopher administrators usually 
mask their Unix directory names with natural-language titles, for 
example, "Sports and recreation" rather than "sports_rec."   But URLs use 
the Unix paths, so that if you're used to being told "Connect to 
gopher.site.com, select 'Society' and then 'Sports and recreation'" you'd 
have to translate that into URL-ese as something like: 
gopher://gopher.site.com/11/soc/sports_rec.  How to find these?  Connect to 
the top-level gopher address, for example:

     gopher.std.com

Then make selections until you get to the document or directory you want.  
Now either hit a lower-case a to add the path to your bookmark list, or, 
if you want to write it down, hit an equal sign, which will show you the 
path.