Author:
Lon W. McDaniel
Internet 4 U

Gopher


Contents


You may have seen a Gopher sometime. It digs tunnels and pops up at different places to look around. A Gopher server is a computer that is connected to the Internet and contains file-listings for itself and for other Gopher servers. If what you are looking for is in a different Gopher you just pop down the tunnel into Gopherspace and pop out inside of the Gopher server containing the material you seek.

It works much like FTP, except better. FTP only lets you grab stuff on the FTP server you are visiting whilst Gopher lets you grab stuff anywhere in Gopherspace.

Gopher servers are almost always University computers. Gopher servers use hypertext links to let you jump around in Gopherspace. You see something interesting, you click on it and suddenly you find yourself in a different part of Gopherspace - perhaps thousands of miles away from the server you started with.

This is a great way for Universities to save on Hard Disk space. They can include loads of interesting files in their Gopher thanks to hypertext links without having to buy new hard disks.

(ps: You can learn more about hypertext links in the section on the World Wide Web)


Copywrite © Lon W. McDaniel 1996