Directory of Gopher Resources

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From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (05 Sep 00): A popular distributed document retrieval system which started as a Campus Wide Information System at the University of Minnesota. Many hosts on the Internet now run Gopher servers which provide a menu of documents. A document may be a plain text file, sound, image, submenu or other Gopher object type. It may be stored on another host or may provide the ability to search through certain files for a given string. From Jargon File (4.2.0, 31 Jan 2000): gopher n. A type of Internet service first floated around 1991 and obsolesced around 1995 by the World Wide Web. Gopher presents a menuing interface to a tree or graph of links; the links can be to documents, runnable programs, or other gopher menus arbitrarily far across the net. Some claim that the gopher software, which was originally developed at the University of Minnesota, was named after the Minnesota Gophers (a sports team). Others claim the word derives from American slang `gofer' (from "go for", dialectal "go fer"), one whose job is to run and fetch things. Finally, observe that gophers dig long tunnels, and the idea of tunneling through the net to find information was a defining metaphor for the developers. Probably all three things were true, but with the first two coming first and the gopher-tunnel metaphor serendipitously adding flavor and impetus to the project as it developed out of its concept stage.

Subcategories

• Client Software
• Server Software

Resources in This Category

• Ars Technica: The Web may have won, but Gopher tunnels on

  http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/11/the-web-may-have-won-but-gopher-tunnels-on/
  Remember Gopher? The protocol predated the Web, and a hardy band of ...

• Floodgap

  gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/
  Gopher server formerly at Point Loma Nazarene University. Splendid live links. Also featuring Veronica-2 search engine. (For gopher links like this a Gopher capable browser such as Lynx or Firefox with the Overbite extension or must be used).

• Floodgap Gopher Proxy

  http://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/
  Public gopher-to-HTTP proxy to allow the use of web browsers to explore gopherspace.

• Jugtail

  http://www.nongnu.org/jugtail/
  An open source search engine system for the Gopher protocol. Jugtail, formerly known as Jughead, searches one server at a time whereas Veronica doesn't have this limitation.

• Jumpjet: Gopher Protocol

  http://www.jumpjet.info/Offbeat-Internet/Gopher/archive.htm
  Archive of important Gopher Protocol documents along with a list of client and server software for various platforms.

• Moo Canada

  gopher://moo.ca/
  Gopher server written for Lambda Moos.

• Quasi-Indefatigable Xenolith

  gopher://quix.us/
  One of the most active Gopher servers on the Internet by a Gopher enthusiast. Many strange topics.

• QUUX

  gopher://gopher.quux.org/1
  John Goerzen's Gopher server (quux.org). Hosts important documents including information on the main mailing-list about Gopher.

• RFC 1436

  http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1436
  The Internet Gopher Protocol (a Distributed Document Search and Retrieval Protocol). F. Anklesaria, M. McCahill, P. Lindner, D. Johnson, D. Torrey, B. Albert. March 1993.

• SDF Public Access UNIX System

  http://sdf.org/
  Free shell account provider, which also provides free Gopher hosting.

• Spencer Hunter's Homepage

  http://www.u.arizona.edu/%7Eshunter/
  Example of a Gopher emulation in HTML, online since 1995. Under the "About this gopher and myself" directory is the author's own Gopher manifesto, "Why gopher is superior to the Web."

• Super Dimension Fortress

  gopher://sdf.lonestar.org/
  Personal GOPHERSPACE is available to all users as well as hundreds of UNIX utilities, games and networking utilities.

• The World

  gopher://gopher.std.com/1
  Public gopher server. Features OBI, the Online Book Initiative.

• TidBITS: Down the Gopher Hole

  http://tidbits.com/article/8909
  A brief presentation of the protocol, both its history and its current status, by an experienced Gopher system administrator.

• Veronica FAQ

  http://www.ou.edu/research/electron/internet/veronica.htm
  Common questions and answers about Veronica, a title search and retrieval system for use with the Internet gopher.

• Vertrauen BBS

  gopher://vert.synchro.net/
  Gopher support demo for Synchronet, an open source BBS server. This Gopher service allows mainly a read-only access to some USENET newsgroups and other discussion boards.

• Whois Search

  gopher://sipb.mit.edu/
  Directory provided by the sipb.mit.edu Gopher server for querying whois servers throughout the Internet. Due to a port limitation, it doesn't work with Firefox, another browser such as Lynx must be used instead.

• Wikipedia: Gopher (protocol)

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)
  Origins, decline, current status and technical details of the Gopher protocol.

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