The Web may have won, but Gopher tunnels on
From: https://web.archive.org/web/20210308090407/https://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 ...
by Nate Anderson - Nov 4, 2009 12:15 pm UTC
gopher n. 1. Any of various short tailed, burrowing mammals of the
family Geomyidae, of North America. 2. (Amer. colloq.) Native or
inhabitant of Minnesota: the Gopher State. 3. (Amer. colloq.) One who
runs errands, does odd-jobs, fetches or delivers documents for office
staff. 4. (computer tech.) software following a simple protocol for
burrowing through a TCP/IP internet.
-From RFC 1436 describing Gopher
Minnesota is not a proud place—how else to explain the fact that it
voluntarily bills itself the "Gopher State" and has as its main
university mascot an appallingly bucktoothed rodent known as a "golden
gopher"?
So it was no surprise that when University of Minnesota researchers
developed an early protocol for organizing and sharing documents over
the Internet, they named it "gopher." The initial version of the
protocol appeared in 1991; by 1993, it had been codified as a Request
for Comment (RFC 1436) that laid out the protocol in some detail.
According to the RFC, gopher was designed as a client-server protocol
running over TCP/IP. Much lighter than HTTP and HTML, gopher provided
essentially two options: menus and documents, both of which were
accessed through port 70. The system was initially text-based, though
basic image serving ability came later. There was no decorative markup
for menu pages, which all looked basically (and boringly) the same; on
the other hand, gopher was quick and consistent.
gopher_FF.png
It was also on the way out pretty quickly. I used it in 1994 during my
first year in college, but even there it coexisted with HTML (and the
new Mosaic "Web browser"). HTML quickly came to dominate, gopher
servers migrated onto the Web, and search engines like Google
eventually replaced the arcane gopher search engines like Archie,
VERONICA, and JUGHEAD (Veronica-2 continues to monitor gopherspace).
Attempts to improve Gopher did little to stop the weaving of the Web.
University of Minnesota computer scientists developed the Gopher+
protocol in the summer of 1993 as a way to "summon new capabilities to
bridge the most keenly felt shortcomings of the venerable old Gopher."
Gopher+ was backwards compatible with Gopher, but the protocol's
popularity was waning, and Gopher+ never took off (it never achieved
RFC status, either).
But, like its namesake, Gopher was hard to kill. As late as 2000-2001,
backers like Bjorn Karger were writing the "Gopher Manifesto" and
arguing that a return to gopher would be a return to the purity of the
early Internet.
"No graphic design means its the ideal navigable interface, a hypertext
Eden," wrote Karger. "It gives simplified usage for sight-impaired
users, same contents for wired/wiredless, and requires no capital
investments in layout and 'design.' Gopher is real—and it was fully
functional in 1992, even without advertisements!"
This sense of gopher as an Edenic protocol of innocence (in comparison
to HTML, the protocol of commerce and experience) gave power to the
calls for its resurrection. Karger features a bit of reminiscence from
one Lawrence Rhodes, whose description of using the protocol is
telling:
"'Point your Gopher to...' I remember getting excited when almost
anything followed these words," said Rhodes. "It was a sign of
progress. Or of the impending state of information connectedness we all
now experience. Now it seems so quaint. I miss it so not for the
underpinning technology (which may or may not have been superior) but
for the feeling that the world of information technology, indeed the
world itself, was advancing rapidly enough to allow the common man
access to the world's great storehouses of data. Of course, in
retrospect, I suppose if I had thought about the common man's
indefatigable hunger for porn and nonstop commerce and the myriad other
forms of bad taste, I would have seen the dangers of the banal. Indeed
Gopher represented a simpler, more naive time."
This isn't a view shared by all Gopher enthusiasts, though. Cameron
Kaiser is a programmer on the Overbite Project, which brings better
Gopher support to Firefox versions 2 and 3. When he writes about the
relevance of Gopher in a Web world, he rejects the nostalgia for a
"simpler time."
"The misconception that the modern renaissance of Gopherspace is simply
a reaction to 'Web overload' is unfortunately often repeated and, while
superficially true, demonstrates a distinct lack of insight," he
writes. Instead, Gopher's advantages lie in the structure that its
simple menu-based interface imposes on content.
"Gopher is a mind-set on making structure out of chaos," says Kaiser.
"Within Gopherspace, all Gophers work the same way and all Gophers
organize themselves around similar menus and interface conceits. It is
not only easy and fast to create Gopher content in this structured and
organized way, it is mandatory by its nature. Resulting from this
mandate is the ability for users to navigate every Gopher installation
in the same way they navigated the one they came from, and the next one
they will go to. Just like it had been envisioned by its creators,
Gopher takes the strict hierarchical nature of a file tree or FTP and
turns it into a friendlier format that still gives the fast and
predictable responses that they would get by simply browsing their hard
drive. As an important consequence, by divorcing interface from
information, Gopher sites stand and shine on the strength of their
content and not the glitz of their bling."
As is evident from their manifestos, neither Kaiser nor Karger have
much time for "design," which always threatens to overshadow "content."
Unfortunately for the Gopherphile, Gopherspace has been stripped of
much of its content; even the "mother Gopher" at the University of
Minnesota has been shuttered.
Gopher tools
Gopher hasn't wholly died, though, and a bit of poking around in Gopher
holes shows that Gopher-based tools are still being actively developed.
First, though, you'll need some way to browse Gopher servers.
The easiest cross-platform tool is Firefox, which continues to support
Gopher browsing. This is not without controversy; a bug request filed
back in 2007 wants to "lessen attack vectors by removing Gopher
protocol support." Two years later, however, Firefox continues to
support the protocol. The Overbite project, not satisfied with this
implementation, has written its own Firefox extension to replace the
default Gopher support with something more robust.
Standalone, modern gopher clients are tough to come by, but you can
download older programs at the HAL 3000 archive.
For the text-mode-inclined, most Telnet clients can display Gopher's
basic output, and browsers like Lynx are a perfect match for Gopher's
textual nature.
terminal_gopher.jpg
Finally, to play around with Gopher without installing a client,
Floodgap Systems runs a free Gopher proxy that renders Gopher pages as
HTML files and allows for seamless Gopher browsing.
Now, what can you do?
Gopher's good times
You can browse the text and images on Gopher servers, of course, which
contain everything from Python code to "glog" (Gopher log) entries. You
can browse a Gopher server running on a Windows 7 machine with 20MB of
RAM. You can browse a UK server with a Swedish domain name.
gopherchan.png
Or you can throw caution to the wind and browse 4chan, of all things,
through Gopher. The notorious /b/ discussion board, home to both the
Anonymous movement and the sort of pictures that might send your mother
to the hospital, is accessible through Port 70's Gopherchan.
Someone at Floodgap has also built a Twitter browser that can pull any
user's tweets into a Gopher page so... there's that, too.
Basically, it's the Web without commercial users, graphic design, Flash
video, cookies, and popup windows—and, when put that way, it's possible
to see why Gopher's devotees appreciate the stark simplicity of the
protocol.
On the other hand, a bit of time spent poking around in Gopherspace
offers a powerful reminder that most of the world has moved on, leaving
Gopher in its hole.
49 Reader Comments
1.
AxMi-24Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
Wed Nov 04, 2009 7:29 am
quote:
On the other hand, a bit of time spent poking around in Gopherspace
offers a powerful reminder that most of the world has moved on,
leaving Gopher in its hole.
Yeay for advanced flash sites. They are truly awesome and provide a
lot of information in an easy to use way.
It would be much nicer if the progress was something positive in
this case
9621 posts | reg. Jan 30, 2006
2.
Jeff3FArs Tribunus Angusticlaviuset Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 7:42 am
Gopher had a good run, but for me Lynx ate the Gopher...
6127 posts | reg. Nov 18, 2002
3.
dieswaytoofastSeniorius Lurkius
Wed Nov 04, 2009 7:42 am New Poster
And for a bit of history -> amongst the many (oh *so* many!)
reasons that the Gopher didn't quite take off was the second
GopherCon - yes, there were such things - when U Minn. revealed
their protocol licensing scheme. It was big, complicated, but about
the only really understandable part was you had to pay them to set
up a server. Yes, there were all sorts of exemptions and
out-clauses, but the bottom line was that the protocol was
encumbered. The sense of deflation was almost palpable....
2 posts | reg. Nov 4, 2009
4.
Bird SkullArs Praetorian
Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:03 am
I can see why IT developers picked the likeness of a gopher. The
resemblance is uncanny.
427 posts | reg. Feb 13, 2009
5.
Banzai51Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:08 am
The misplaced nostalgia is frightening. Gopher was fun while it
lasted, but WWW was better in every way. It allowed more
connectivity and creativity than Gopher. Those rejecting design are
insane. There are plenty of ways to keep your design simple yet
still nice to look at and easy to navigate. For those misguided
nostalgia buffs, apparently they don't remember Gopher nor the
early days of WWW. WWW was everything they remember Gopher to be,
there was porn on both, and the banal and commercial aspects would
have come to any protocol that got widely popular. What they really
pine for are the days when only the "technology elite" (as they
would consider themselves, natch) were on the internet, ahead of
the curve. Now everyone is up to speed, they've lost their lofty
perch, and finding that new edge will take more work than they want
to exert. Now, being on the internet isn't enough for cred, you
have to actually create content for that "internet cred."
Popularity lowers the barrier to entry as I'm sure the folks over
at The Well can readily understand.
7954 posts | reg. Feb 16, 2001
6.
hobgoblinArs Tribunus Angusticlavius
Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:15 am
i guess one option is to browse the web with CCS turned off.
however, the text input box of the arstechnica page then becomes
somewhat small...
9070 posts | reg. Apr 16, 2004
7.
ㅁboySeniorius Lurkius
Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:46 am
Archie was an FTP search engine, not gopher.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_search_engine
22 posts | reg. Sep 15, 2009
8.
gavdanaSeniorius Lurkius
Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:50 am New Poster
Nate, thanks for the great article. I appreciate the article's
sentiment, coming from a guy who still misses the community BBS
scene.
1 post | reg. Nov 4, 2009
9.
mikepaulArs Scholae Palatinae
Wed Nov 04, 2009 8:59 am
Geeze, I'm getting paranoid. All I could think of is terrorists
using this for communication since it's so... underground...
960 posts | reg. Mar 17, 2005
10.
rduncan10Ars Centurion
Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:00 am
You think there would still be a place for something like Gopher.
The highly structured content-driven system might work better on my
cell phone screen than most web pages do (and they would cost a lot
less to download then all those images).
In some ways this seems to be the impetuous behind Twitter (or even
RSS). Compare it to, say, the Facebook wall. Twitter is content
stripped of design. Maybe a Gopher successor could fill a similar
role for other types of content.
And if the anti-Net-neutrality people get there way, we might all
be stuck using Gopher. It might be the only thing that fits once
big media gets their hands on the rest of the bandwidth.
206 posts | reg. Nov 4, 2009
11.
aquasubArs Scholae Palatinae
Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:04 am
quote:
"'Point your Gopher to...' I remember getting excited when almost
anything followed these words," said Rhodes. "It was a sign of
progress. Or of the impending state of information connectedness we
all now experience. Now it seems so quaint. I miss it so not for the
underpinning technology (which may or may not have been superior)
but for the feeling that the world of information technology, indeed
the world itself, was advancing rapidly enough to allow the common
man access to the world's great storehouses of data. Of course, in
retrospect, I suppose if I had thought about the common man's
indefatigable hunger for porn and nonstop commerce and the myriad
other forms of bad taste, I would have seen the dangers of the
banal. Indeed Gopher represented a simpler, more naive time."
It is a good thing the world has moved on past arrogant douchebags
like this guy.
913 posts | reg. Aug 5, 2008
12.
lmasantiSmack-Fu Master, in training
Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:08 am
quote:
"So it was no surprise that, when University of Minnesota
researchers developed an early protocol for organizing and sharing
documents over the Internet, they named it "gopher.""
In behalf of the creators of the protocol's name, there is a Latin
abbreviation, commonly used in "serious" books, articles and
papers: "cfr." pronounced "confer," translated as "go to see."
It is used as a [paper] hiperlink: you are speaking of something
and the author send you to "cfr." (go to see) other material.
66 posts | reg. Oct 23, 2009
13.
kakaoSeniorius Lurkius
Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:09 am
quote:
in comparison to HTML, the protocol of commerce and experience
Just for the record HTML is not a protocol.
42 posts | reg. Mar 10, 2005
14.
SchwanzArs Praefectuset Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:20 am
quote:
Originally posted by lmasanti:
quote:
"So it was no surprise that, when University of Minnesota
researchers developed an early protocol for organizing and sharing
documents over the Internet, they named it "gopher.""
In behalf of the creators of the protocol's name, there is a Latin
abbreviation, commonly used in "serious" books, articles and papers:
"cfr." pronounced "confer," translated as "go to see."
It is used as a [paper] hiperlink: you are speaking of something and
the author send you to "cfr." (go to see) other material.
uh, no. It was because of Goldy Gopher.
5899 posts | reg. May 1, 2001
15.
MaizeAndBlueArs Legatus Legioniset Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:24 am
quote:
Originally posted by dieswaytoofast:
And for a bit of history -> amongst the many (oh *so* many!) reasons
that the Gopher didn't quite take off was the second GopherCon -
yes, there were such things - when U Minn. revealed their protocol
licensing scheme. It was big, complicated, but about the only really
understandable part was you had to pay them to set up a server. Yes,
there were all sorts of exemptions and out-clauses, but the bottom
line was that the protocol was encumbered. The sense of deflation
was almost palpable....
The ironic thing is that Gopher was developed on the side, not by
researchers in the computer science department, but by a couple of
programmers in the computing services department (in Hypercard of
all things). But once it started to take off the higher ups
noticed, and quickly tried to figure out how to squeeze it for all
it was worth (hence, GopherCon). Problem was, WWW was coming out at
the same time, and was superior in at least one way - being able to
type in URL's and start anywhere - that Gopher couldn't match.
26902 posts | reg. Oct 27, 2003
16.
clank75Ars Scholae Palatinae
Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:25 am
quote:
Originally posted by Schwanz:
quote:
Originally posted by lmasanti:
quote:
"So it was no surprise that, when University of Minnesota
researchers developed an early protocol for organizing and sharing
documents over the Internet, they named it "gopher.""
In behalf of the creators of the protocol's name, there is a Latin
abbreviation, commonly used in "serious" books, articles and papers:
"cfr." pronounced "confer," translated as "go to see."
It is used as a [paper] hiperlink: you are speaking of something and
the author send you to "cfr." (go to see) other material.
uh, no. It was because of Goldy Gopher.
The popular myth when I was using it was that it was because you
would use it to go for information (i.e. you'd Gopher it)
Brought back some happy memories, anyway...
1035 posts | reg. Jan 24, 2005
17.
MaizeAndBlueArs Legatus Legioniset Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:25 am
quote:
Originally posted by Schwanz:
quote:
Originally posted by lmasanti:
quote:
"So it was no surprise that, when University of Minnesota
researchers developed an early protocol for organizing and sharing
documents over the Internet, they named it "gopher.""
In behalf of the creators of the protocol's name, there is a Latin
abbreviation, commonly used in "serious" books, articles and papers:
"cfr." pronounced "confer," translated as "go to see."
It is used as a [paper] hiperlink: you are speaking of something and
the author send you to "cfr." (go to see) other material.
uh, no. It was because of Goldy Gopher.
The University of Minnesota mascot. It's not for nothing that the
other Big Ten schools, when they had Gopher servers, actually named
them after other animals.
26902 posts | reg. Oct 27, 2003
18.
Nate AndersonArs Tribunus Militumet Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:51 am
quote:
Originally posted by ㅁboy:
Archie was an FTP search engine, not gopher.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_search_engine
Fixed, thanks.
2189 posts | reg. Nov 18, 2005
19.
dicaxArs Centurion
Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:14 am
wow...4chan is even awesomer with gopher. So many useless .gifs...
311 posts | reg. Jun 19, 2002
20.
ayelaoArs Scholae Palatinae
Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:14 am
quote:
Originally posted by aquasub:
It is a good thing the world has moved on past arrogant douchebags
like this guy.
And now if only the world would move past pointless childish
namecalling.
I think the subtext of his statement is that he is disheartened
that the dissemination of information has moved from a more
academic role to a commercial one. While he may have chosen
borderline hyperbolic statements regarding the "common man," it
doesn't mean it's an entirely inaccurate depiction. Access to and
aggregation of information are becoming more commercialised.
To make a slightly absurd analogy: I come to Ars Technica for
articles such as John Siracusa's Mac OS X reviews/insights, Jon
Stokes' insights and Peter Bright's occasional Windows
reviews/insights. This, coupled with the fact that the comments
rarely digress into a "FIRST" and "+1"/"++" nature, is the reason
why I remain here. However, with the ever increasing invasiveness
of the ads -- the fly-out or the full screen ads that have become
more and more prevalent -- it certainly detracts from the core
reasons I have enjoyed the site over the years.
In keeping with my analogy, I interpreted his statement as being
disheartened that the quality of information to advertising/PR
ratio is tipping in favour of advertising.
This comment was edited by ayelao on November 04, 2009 15:33
827 posts | reg. May 4, 2005
21.
EdzoArs Praefectuset Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:34 am
quote:
Originally posted by mikepaul:
Geeze, I'm getting paranoid. All I could think of is terrorists
using this for communication since it's so... underground...
Not that I want to give them any ideas, but if there was an
internet relic that would seem tailor made for them, it would be
Hotline. At least based on what I remember of it. In fact, the Wiki
on it says that the company went under after the venture capital
funds pulled out after 9/11.
4335 posts | reg. Jul 7, 2006
23.
fferitt25Ars Praefectus
Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:03 am
@Nate -
quote:
You can browse a Gopher server running on a Windows 7 machine with
20GB of RAM.
The alst time I checked...
quote:
20,135,936 bytes of RAM
...is equal to roughly 20MB NOT 20GB.
That's a significant discrepency someplace that might need
correcting.
4145 posts | reg. Apr 24, 2007
24.
kennedyeArs Legatus Legioniset Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:03 am
I can't find this article on any WAIS servers.
20279 posts | reg. Apr 19, 2001
25.
mathrockbrockArs Tribunus Militum
Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:09 am
quote:
Originally posted by TheSpike:
Problem was, WWW was coming out at the same time, and was superior
in at least one way - being able to type in URL's and start anywhere
- that Gopher couldn't match.
Apparently that's fixed since the gopher links in the article
worked fine for me in Firefox. I guess you were referring to old
standalone gopher clients?
Anyway, I like it, but then again I always liked FTP. Gopher just
seems slightly prettier, or more navigable at least. Sure HTTP is
awesome in some ways, but I'm getting awfully sick of trying to
find game or movie info and learning that the only source is the
publisher's flash-intro-laden website with "xtreme" background
music and whooshing flyout menus.
Maybe I should just keep a copy of Lynx handy...
1800 posts | reg. Mar 15, 2005
26.
MaizeAndBlueArs Legatus Legioniset Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:17 am
quote:
Originally posted by mathrockbrock:
quote:
Originally posted by TheSpike:
Problem was, WWW was coming out at the same time, and was superior
in at least one way - being able to type in URL's and start anywhere
- that Gopher couldn't match.
Apparently that's fixed since the gopher links in the article worked
fine for me in Firefox. I guess you were referring to old standalone
gopher clients?
I was. The old gopher network was pretty much hardwired - I recall
having to navigate to big gopher home pages to find things. It
wasn't bad for what it was, but it was highly centralized, and not
particularly open. To put it another way, it was developed on
campus before all students were automatically given email accounts,
and before the dorms were wired for net access.
26902 posts | reg. Oct 27, 2003
27.
fferitt25Ars Praefectus
Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:27 am
quote:
Originally posted by Edzo:
quote:
Originally posted by mikepaul:
Geeze, I'm getting paranoid. All I could think of is terrorists
using this for communication since it's so... underground...
Not that I want to give them any ideas, but if there was an internet
relic that would seem tailor made for them, it would be Hotline. At
least based on what I remember of it. In fact, the Wiki on it says
that the company went under after the venture capital funds pulled
out after 9/11.
Hotline development continued until 2003 after HostSprings bought
the rights from Hotline Communications.
As for the terrorism network stuff - yeah it's possible - but not
very effective. They'd have to maintain a running hotline server
instance. And who knows hwat modern network protocols are in place
that would hinder the usability of somehting that hasn't been kept
up with for 6-7 years.
Just found a copy of a Client and installed it - launched it -
tried to access some old servers. Nothing - all seem to be down.
But it was also throwing up some Errors. So unless these 'would-be'
terrorists spend some time and energy grabbing the source code and
updating the software to to fix the Errors and modernize the code -
they're probably better off with an SSL or VNC connection. Much
easier to deal with. And a hell of a lot more secure.
quote:
I was. The old gopher network was pretty much hardwired - I recall
having to navigate to big gopher home pages to find things. It
wasn't bad for what it was, but it was highly centralized, and not
particularly open. To put it another way, it was developed on campus
before all students were automatically given email accounts, and
before the dorms were wired for net access.
That reminds me of the old Prodigy - AOL - CompuServe Stand-alone
Community Hubs on dial up in the late 80s early 90s.
This comment was edited by fferitt25 on November 04, 2009 16:34
4145 posts | reg. Apr 24, 2007
28.
Nate AndersonArs Tribunus Militumet Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:28 am
quote:
Originally posted by fferitt25:
@Nate -
quote:
You can browse a Gopher server running on a Windows 7 machine with
20GB of RAM.
The alst time I checked...
quote:
20,135,936 bytes of RAM
...is equal to roughly 20MB NOT 20GB.
That's a significant discrepency someplace that might need
correcting.
Odd--when I looked at that yesterday, I was quite sure that the
number began with 19. I wonder if it was changed? At any rate, I
changed it.
2189 posts | reg. Nov 18, 2005
29.
Yuhong baoArs Tribunus Militum
Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:47 am
"a bug request filed back in 2007 wants to "lessen attack vectors
by removing Gopher protocol support." "
And indeed IE did exactly this back in 2002. Actually, they at
first didn't completely remove it, but just disable it, but I think
IE 7 completely removed it.
This comment was edited by Yuhong bao on November 04, 2009 17:06
2202 posts | reg. Mar 8, 2008
30.
zarkoniteArs Scholae Palatinae
Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:53 am
quote:
Originally posted by Edzo:
quote:
Originally posted by mikepaul:
Geeze, I'm getting paranoid. All I could think of is terrorists
using this for communication since it's so... underground...
Not that I want to give them any ideas, but if there was an internet
relic that would seem tailor made for them, it would be Hotline. At
least based on what I remember of it. In fact, the Wiki on it says
that the company went under after the venture capital funds pulled
out after 9/11.
I'm quite certain they're all using IRC and Skype!
758 posts | reg. Nov 10, 2004
31.
fferitt25Ars Praefectus
Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:09 pm
It's cool stuff though. Fun to play with as alternative web
development pages go. Might set something up on my own site.
4145 posts | reg. Apr 24, 2007
32.
derbbreSeniorius Lurkius
Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:10 pm New Poster
Just because HTTP (and HTML) can handle images, video, and Flash,
doesn't mean you have to use them. If you are against such things,
just point Apache at a directory of files and away you go. I don't
understand the need for the throwback.
7 posts | reg. Jul 3, 2008
33.
Anonymous FreakArs Scholae Palatinaeet Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:14 pm
I started using the 'net before Mosaic was even created, and Gopher
was my hypertext protocol of choice. It's odd to look back on all
the 'surfing' I used to do on Gopher now, and how cool it was.
784 posts | reg. Aug 9, 2002
34.
EdzoArs Praefectuset Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:44 pm
quote:
Originally posted by fferitt25:
So unless these 'would-be' terrorists spend some time and energy
grabbing the source code and updating the software to to fix the
Errors and modernize the code - they're probably better off with an
SSL or VNC connection. Much easier to deal with. And a hell of a lot
more secure.
Or perhaps an SSH-accessible BBS server, loaded with the latest
jihadist door games.
4335 posts | reg. Jul 7, 2006
35.
Wheels Of ConfusionArs Legatus Legioniset Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:48 pm
quote:
Originally posted by rduncan10:
Twitter is content stripped of design.
Twitter has content?
quote:
Originally posted by dicax:
wow...4chan is even awesomer with gopher. So many useless .gifs...
Thing is, 4chan's page design is so simple you're not losing a lot
with the gopher version.
39060 posts | reg. Jan 18, 2009
36.
VernArs Scholae Palatinaeet Subscriptor
Wed Nov 04, 2009 12:54 pm
I still do a significant portion of my browsing from elinks. In
fact, this post if brought to you from elinks.
630 posts | reg. Mar 19, 2002
37.
funkatronArs Scholae Palatinae
Wed Nov 04, 2009 1:27 pm
It was kind of odd that you quote Cameron Kaiser extensively in the
piece, but refer to "someone at Floodgap." Cameron Kaiser is the
sole person behind Floodgap, as the first line of text at
Floodgap.com indicates:
"My name is Cameron Kaiser..."
Beyond that, I do wish the tone at the end were a bit less
dismissive.
676 posts | reg. Jul 9, 2000
38.
fxdsArs Tribunus Militum
Wed Nov 04, 2009 2:50 pm
Gopher was a very nice, organized step forward from the trackless
wastes of ftp servers that came before it. But it was clear from
the first time I fired up Mosaic that the web was the real
destination, with gopher only a step, albeit an important one,
along the way.
1906 posts | reg. Nov 9, 2000
39.
PanicSwitchSmack-Fu Master, in training
Wed Nov 04, 2009 3:17 pm
I don't know. I think Gopher could still be somewhat useful
nowadays. It'd make a good starting point for a "universal" content
system. The internet is well and good, but it'd be awesome to have
something like a "library computer protocol" that you would have
this hierarchical organization of information that can be easily
displayed in a plaintext (with simple image) format, which could
then be styled by the user using a variation of CSS. That way the
content is in a somewhat universally portable system.
Again this may be a specialized case...but I can see something
appealing about that.
1.
Guest
Wed Nov 04, 2009 4:28 pm New Poster
quote:
Originally posted by funkatron:
Beyond that, I do wish the tone at the end were a bit less
dismissive.
IMHO, it's hard to not be dismissive of a content discovery
protocol which points to virtually no content.
For myself: I thought Gopher was okay but inferior to simple FTP
access with a good client (ncftp being the definition of "good ftp
client" in the early-90's) ... A lot easier to author content on an
FTP site and no harder to find it. Of course HTTP and HTML were at
once more complex and infinitely more accessible, and it's no
wonder that they took the steam out of Gopher's sails early on.
I did get a kick out of a pre-proposal in 1993 calling the
two-year-old Gopher protocol "venerable" though. I first heard of
Gopher in early 1992, and thought of it as old the next year as
well. I mean, AOL, Compuserv and just about any BBS had better
content interfaces if that's what you wanted in those days, and the
"real" content was more directly accessible via FTP than navigating
through a gopher hole.
post | reg.
2.
Guest
Wed Nov 04, 2009 4:31 pm New Poster
quote:
Originally posted by PanicSwitch:
I don't know. I think Gopher could still be somewhat useful
nowadays. It'd make a good starting point for a "universal" content
system. The internet is well and good, but it'd be awesome to have
something like a "library computer protocol" that you would have
this hierarchical organization of information that can be easily
displayed in a plaintext (with simple image) format, which could
then be styled by the user using a variation of CSS. That way the
content is in a somewhat universally portable system.
Again this may be a specialized case...but I can see something
appealing about that.
Why wouldn't you just build that exact same system on HTTP and
HTML, taking advantage of the past decade and a half of client
progress, instead of "reviving" a command shell from 1991?
post | reg.
3.
kragbaxArs Praefectus
Wed Nov 04, 2009 5:16 pm
For the record Goldy isn't a gopher, he's a chipmonk. The original
artist didn't know what a gopher looked like so he drew woodland
critters, one of which was a chipmonk. At least Goldy Gopher sounds
somewhat better than Goldy the Chipmunk. Now if our athletes could
avoid being arrested every other week.
Gopher state is a nickname from the early days from a 1857
political cartoon. Nine politicians with gopher bodies were pulling
a locomotive which is a reference to a $5 million bill for railroad
development. The name just stuck after that.
Source: Gopher Guide 17th Edition. 2009. Regents of the University
of Minnesota. Page viii.
3042 posts | reg. Mar 13, 2000
4.
fletc3herArs Tribunus Militum
Wed Nov 04, 2009 5:51 pm
I coded some gopher sites for a while in school, but even when
working on them the limitations were palpable. Ironically, when I
first started coding HTML I was looking for the markup tags that
would allow me to create a menu page, expecting that some kind of
site navigation would be built-in. Took me a little while to
realize it was entirely free form.
1863 posts | reg. Aug 3, 2006
5.
gimfredArs Scholae Palatinae
Wed Nov 04, 2009 7:29 pm
Has someone seriously got Windows 7 running in 20MB? I couldn't
figure out why that was relevant but it is impressive. We haven't
seen that since Win95
1469 posts | reg. Jun 24, 2009
6.
PsychoStreakArs Tribunus Angusticlavius
Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:27 am
quote:
Basically, it's the Web without commercial users, graphic design,
Flash video, cookies, and popup windows
My initial reaction to reading that was, "Wow, that sounds
fantastic!"
It think that's mainly due to the love/hate relationship with
Flash.
While I enjoy being able to watch shows, movies and the like
online, and there are a handful of flash games I play once in a
great while, I realized that beyond those things, the Web is faster
and just better without Flash.
Anyway, I had not realized that Gopher had only been out for around
a year, possibly less when we covered it in college. I think it
would have made a better impression if we hadn't had to access it
through the CUNY VM system, which itself was coelacanth like even
back then in how archaic it was.
7449 posts | reg. Dec 8, 1999
7.
onkeljonasArs Tribunus Angusticlavius
Thu Nov 05, 2009 7:15 am
quote:
Originally posted by PanicSwitch:
I don't know. I think Gopher could still be somewhat useful
nowadays. It'd make a good starting point for a "universal" content
system. The internet is well and good, but it'd be awesome to have
something like a "library computer protocol" that you would have
this hierarchical organization of information that can be easily
displayed in a plaintext (with simple image) format, which could
then be styled by the user using a variation of CSS. That way the
content is in a somewhat universally portable system.
Again this may be a specialized case...but I can see something
appealing about that.
HTML works perfectly well for that. As has been mentioned, the
markup doesn't force flash and fancy effects on your content, and
it is very easy to organize information in a hierarchy.
EDIT: Browsing a few gopher pages it seems like they are all plain
text. How is that in any way competitive with the structured markup
easily available with html?
This comment was edited by onkeljonas on November 05, 2009 12:23
8162 posts | reg. Aug 31, 2003
8.
Blue AdeptArs Praefectus
Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:56 pm
Eh, nostalgia for Gopher is weird. I used it before the web really
took over the world, and there wasn't anything that the web didn't
do better 6-12 months later.
It does look like a dial up BBS though. I guess it has that going
for it.
5189 posts | reg. Jan 23, 2001
9.
NeoGopherSeniorius Lurkius
Thu Nov 05, 2009 6:02 pm New Poster
This is a surprisingly timely article for us. We’ve just launched
the first early beta of NeoGopher (”new gopher”) .
The idea behind NeoGopher is that it is a universal data browser,
designed to allow browsing of data from any web based HTTP API.
Imagine NeoGopher as Gopher re-invented for the 21st century.
NeoGopher is what Gopher might have been if instead of fading away
in 1993, it had improved, extended, developed, added features and
become more closely integrated with the world wide web. NeoGopher
is dramatically more powerful than Gopher ever was.
You are welcome to download the beta at http://www.neogopher.com
we’d love your feedback.
Andrew Stuart - Founder NeoGopher
1 post | reg. Nov 6, 2009
10.
wiz420Ars Scholae Palatinaeet Subscriptor
Tue Nov 10, 2009 4:01 pm
Although gopher was around when I started stealing net access from
the local university as a young teen (sick and tired of AOL), I
don't remember doing much more than trying it out once or twice. I
was more into usenet, MUSEs and MUSHs, and using archie to try to
find mac shareware.
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