In article <[log in to unmask]>,
[log in to unmask] (March Hare) writes:
> In article <[log in to unmask]>,
>[log in to unmask] (Kent Covert) writes:
>> In article <[log in to unmask]>,
>>[log in to unmask] writes:
>>> I have three question to the VAX and the Internet environment:
>>>
>>> 1:  What is Gopher, and how do I use it?
>
> Well, I would probably give an inaccurate description of this one, so
> I'll leave it to someone else.
>
>[John Carmack's good description of Internet archives deleted]
>
>> I'm going to leave these 2 questions to someone more knowledgable about
>> these than I (John Harlan?).
>>
>
> So, now only one question is left :)
>
> John [not Harlan]
 
Sorry not to have gotten here sooner, but am glad to be able to do NetNews
again :-)  (Thanks to our Oxford "fixer" extraordinaire: Kent!)
 
Gopher is client/server software for facilitating access to and retrieval
of network-available information.  Gopher essentially presents the user with
information in a menued hierarchic format, and (transparently to the user)
uses underlying TCP/IP protocols such as ftp and telnet to retrieve or
connect to specific documents across networks.  Gopher was developed at the
University of Minnesota and is very widely used (by colleges and universities,
government organizations, commercial enterprises -- anyone or anything that's
connected to a TCP/IP network) to make information available.  It is
especially popular as a base technology for campus wide information systems
(CWIS) because its servers (originally written for UNIX) run on just about
any hardware/software platform, and its clients are available for just about
any environment (DOS, Mac, UNIX, VM, VMS, etc).
 
There are a handful of gopher servers running at Miami, including our
developing CWIS, Miami Root: Miami University's Campus Information.
To try out Miami Root (in its infancy), aim your gopher client at
gopher.muohio.edu or on MiamiU (VM) or MiaVX1, 2 or 3 (VMS), type gopher
or muroot at the command line.
 
The best way to learn gopher is to do gopher :-)
 
John [not Carmack]  :-)
 
--
 
                          John B Harlan
         Campus Wide Information System (CWIS) Coordinator
                    Miami University (Ohio USA)
                    [log in to unmask]