Path: bio.indiana.edu!usenet.ucs.indiana.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!welchgate.welch.jhu.edu!danj From: danj@welchgate.welch.jhu.edu (Dan Jacobson) Subject: Re: gopher? Message-ID: <1993Apr27.000242.25806@welchgate.welch.jhu.edu> Organization: Johns Hopkins Univ. Welch Medical Library References: Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1993 00:02:42 GMT Lines: 364 In article Denys Proteau writes: > >Hi Yeast People! > What is gopher? > Denys > Here's some information to help get you started with gopher. Best of luck, Dan Jacobson danj@welchgate.welch.jhu.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gopher Info This is a heavily edited version of the Gopher FAQ intended to give people just starting with gopher enough information to get a client and jump into Gopher-space - a complete version can be obtained as described below. Once you have a gopher client point it at merlot.welch.jhu.edu and welcome to gopher-space! Dan Jacobson danj@welchgate.welch.jhu.edu ----- Common Questions and Answers about the Internet Gopher, a client/server protocol for making a world wide information service, with many implementations. Posted to comp.infosystems.gopher, comp.answers, and news.answers every two weeks. The most recent version of this FAQ can be gotten through gopher, or via anonymous ftp: pit-manager.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/gopher-faq Those without FTP access should send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with "send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources" in the body to find out how to do FTP by e-mail. ------------------------------------------------------------------- List of questions in the Gopher FAQ: Q0: What is Gopher? Q1: Where can I get Gopher software? Q2: What do I need to access Gopher? Q3: Where are there publicly available logins for Gopher? Q4: Who Develops Gopher Software? Q5: What is the relationship between Gopher and (WAIS, WWW, ftp)? Q6: Are papers or articles describing Gopher available? Q7: What is veronica? Q8: What is Available for Biology? ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q0: What is Gopher? A0: The Internet Gopher client/server provides a distributed information delivery system around which a world/campus-wide information system (CWIS) can readily be constructed. While providing a delivery vehicle for local information, Gopher facilitates access to other Gopher and information servers throughout the world. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q1: Where can I get Gopher software? A1: via anonymous ftp to boombox.micro.umn.edu. Look in the directory /pub/gopher -------------------------------------------------------------------- Q2: What do I need to access Gopher? A2: You will need a gopher "client" program that runs on your local PC or workstation There are clients for the following systems. The directory following the name is the location of the client on the anonymous ftp site boombox.micro.umn.edu (134.84.132.2) in the directory /pub/gopher. Unix Curses & Emacs : /pub/gopher/Unix/gopher1.12.tar.Z Xwindows (athena) : /pub/gopher/Unix/xgopher1.2.tar.Z Xwindows (Motif) : /pub/gopher/Unix/moog Xwindows (Xview) : /pub/gopher/Unix/xvgopher Macintosh Hypercard : /pub/gopher/Macintosh-TurboGopher/old-versions * Macintosh Application : /pub/gopher/Macintosh-TurboGopher * DOS w/Clarkson Driver : /pub/gopher/PC_client/ NeXTstep : /pub/gopher/NeXT/ VM/CMS : /pub/gopher/Rice_CMS/ or /pub/gopher/VieGOPHER/ VMS : /pub/gopher/VMS/ OS/2 2.0 : /pub/gopher/os2/ MVS/XA : /pub/gopher/mvs/ Many other clients and servers have been developed by others, the following is an attempt at a comprehensive list. A Microsoft Windows Winsock client "The Gopher Book" sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock/goph_tbk.zip A Macintosh Application, "MacGopher". ftp.cc.utah.edu:/pub/gopher/Macintosh * Another Macintosh application, "GopherApp". ftp.bio.indiana.edu:/util/gopher/gopherapp * A port of the UNIX curses client for DOS with PC/TCP oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu:/public/dos/misc/dosgopher.exe A port of the UNIX curses client for PC-NFS bcm.tmc.edu:/nfs/gopher.exe A beta version of the PC Gopher client for Novell's LAN Workplace for DOS lennon.itn.med.umich.edu:/dos/gopher A VMS DECwindows client for use with Wollongong or UCX job.acs.ohio-state.edu:XGOPHER_CLIENT.SHARE * Note: these Macintosh clients require MacTCP. Most of the above clients can also be fetched via a gopher client itself. Put the following on a gopher server: Type=1 Host=boombox.micro.umn.edu Port=70 Path= Name=Gopher Software Distribution. Or point your gopher client at boombox.micro.umn.edu, port 70 and look in the gopher directory. There are also a number of public telnet login sites available. The University of Minnesota operates one on the machine "consultant.micro.umn.edu" (134.84.132.4) See Q3 for more information about this. It is recommended that you run the client software instead of logging into the public telnet login sites. A client uses the custom features of the local machine (mouse, scroll bars, etc.) A local client is also faster. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q3: Where are there publicly available logins (ie places to telnet to in order to get a taste of gopher) for Gopher? A3: Here is a short list, use the site closest to you to minimize network lag. Telnet Public Logins: Hostname IP# Login Area ------------------------- --------------- ------ ------------- consultant.micro.umn.edu 134.84.132.4 gopher North America gopher.uiuc.edu 128.174.33.160 gopher North America panda.uiowa.edu 128.255.40.201 panda North America gopher.sunet.se 192.36.125.2 gopher Europe info.anu.edu.au 150.203.84.20 info Australia gopher.chalmers.se 129.16.221.40 gopher Sweden tolten.puc.cl 146.155.1.16 gopher South America ecnet.ec 157.100.45.2 gopher Ecuador gan.ncc.go.jp 160.190.10.1 gopher Japan It is recommended that you run the client software instead of logging into the public login sites. A client uses the custom features of the local machine (mouse, scroll bars, etc.) and gives faster response. Furthermore many of the basic features of clients - saving a file to your hard drive, printing a file to a local printer, viewing images, retrieving files from ftp sites etc.... are not available by the telnet logins. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q4: Who Develops Gopher Software? A4: Gopher was originally developed in April 1991 by the University of Minnesota Microcomputer, Workstation, Networks Center to help our campus find answers to their computer questions. It has since grown into a full-fledged World Wide Information System used by a large number of sites in the world. Many people have contributed to the project, too numerous to count. The people behind the much of the gopher software can be reached via e-mail at gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu, or via paper mail: Internet Gopher Developers 100 Union St. SE #190 Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA Or via FAX at: +1 (612) 625-6817 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Q5: What is the relationship between Gopher and (WAIS, WWW, ftp)? A5: Gopher is intimately intertwined with these two other systems. As shipped the Unix gopher server has the capability to: - Search local WAIS indices. - Query remote WAIS servers and funnel the results to gopher clients. - Query remote ftp sites and funnel the results to gopher clients. - Be queried by WWW (World Wide Web) clients (either using built in gopher querying or using native http querying. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q6: Are papers or articles describing Gopher available? A6: Gopher has a whole chapter devoted to it in : _The_Whole_Internet_, Ed Kroll, O'Reilly, 1992 (Editors note: ..Great book, go out and buy a bunch!) _The_Internet_Passport: NorthWestNet's Guide to Our World Online" By Jonathan Kochmer and NorthWestNet. Published by NorthWestNet, Bellevue, WA. 1993. 516 pp. ISBN 0-9635281-0-6. Contact info: passport@nwnet.net, or (206) 562-3000 _A_Students_Guide_to_UNIX by Harley Hahn. (publisher McGraw Hill, Inc.; 1993 ISBN 0-07-025511-3) Other references include: _The_Internet_Gopher_, "ConneXions", July 1992, Interop. _Exploring_Internet_GopherSpace_ "The Internet Society News", v1n2 1992, (You can subscribe to the Internet Society News by sending e-mail to isoc@nri.reston.va.us) _The_Internet_Gopher_Protocol_, Proceedings of the Twenty-Third IETF, CNRI, Section 5.3 _Internet_Gopher_, Proceedings of Canadian Networking '92 _The_Internet_Gopher_, INTERNET: Getting Started, SRI International, Section 10.5.5 _Tools_help_Internet_users_discover_on-line_treasures, Computerworld, July 20, 1992 _TCP/IP_Network_Administration_, O'Reilly. Balakrishan, B. (Oct 1992) "SPIGopher: Making SPIRES databases accessible through the Gopher protocol". SPIRES Fall '92 Workshop, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Tomer, C. Information Technology Standards for Libraries, _Journal of the American Society for Information Science_, 43(8):566-570, Sept 1992. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q7: What is veronica? A7: veronica: Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives. veronica offers a keyword search of most gopher-server menu titles in the entire gopher web. As archie is to ftp archives, veronica is to gopherspace. A veronica search produces a menu of gopher items, each of which is a direct pointer to a gopher data source. Because veronica is accessed through a gopher client, it is easy to use, and gives access to all types of data supported by the gopher protocol. To try veronica, select it from the "Other Gophers" menu on Minnesota's gopher server, or point your gopher at: Name=veronica (search menu items in most of GopherSpace) Type=1 Port=70 Path=1/veronica Host=futique.scs.unr.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q8: What is Available for Biology? A8: There is an incredible amount of software, data and information availble to biologists now by gopher. Here is a brief list of the Biological Databases that you can search via gopher: 2. BDT Tropical Data Base Searches/ 3. Biotechnet Buyers Guide - Online Catalogues for Biology 4. Search Protein Data Bank Headers 5. Chlamydomonas Genetics Center / 6. Crystallization database/ 7. HGMP Databases - Probes and Primers / 8. Museum of Paleontology TYPE Specimen Index 9. MycDB - Mycobacterium DataBase 10. Search (Drosophila) Flybase (Indiana)/ 11. Search (GenBank + SWISS-PROT + PIR + PDB) 12. Search AAtDB - An Arabidopsis thaliana Database 13. Search ACEDB - A Caenorhabditis elegans Database 14. Search CompoundKB - A Metabolic Compound Database 15. Search Databases at Welchlab (Vectors, Promoters, NRL-3D, EST, OMI../ 16. Search EMBL 17. Search GenBank 18. Search Genbank - 2 19. Search Genbank Updates 20. Search LiMB 21. Search PIR 22. Search PIR (keyword,species...) 23. Search PROSITE 24. Search Rebase - Restriction Enzyme Database 25. Search SWISS-PROT 26. Search TFD 27. Search the C. elegans Strain List 28. Search the DNA Database of Japan 29. Search the EC Enzyme Database 30. Search the GrainGenes database 31. Search the Maize Database / 32. Cloning Vectors: plasmids, phage, etc. 33. EPD - Eukaryotic Promoter Database 34. EST - Expressed Sequence Tag Database - Human 35. wEST - Expressed Sequence Tag Database - C. elegans 36. Kabat Database of Proteins of Immunological Interest 37. NRL_3D Protein Sequence-Structure Database 38. OMIM - Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man 39. Seqanalref - Sequence Analysis Bibliographic Reference Data Ban.. 40. Search Rebase - Restriction Enzyme Database 41. Search the EC Enzyme Database 42. Search The Rodent Section of Genbank 43. Database Taxonomy (Genbank, Swiss-Prot ...)/ 44. Retrieve Full PDB Entries by Accession Number 45. Search for All Researchers funded by NIH 46. Search for Genome Researchers funded by DOE 47. Search for Researchers funded by NSF 48. Search for Researchers funded by the USDA 49. E-mail Addresses of Crystallographers/ 50. E-mail Addresses of Yeast Reasearchers/ 51. Phonebooks Around the World/ 52. Search and Retrieve Software for All Computers/ 53. Search and Retrieve Macintosh Software/ 54. Search and Retrieve DOS Software/ 55. Search and Retrieve GNU Software/ 56. Search and Retrieve Software for Biology/ 57. Search for Agricultural Software/ 58. Search and Retrieve Graphics Software and Data/ 59. Search and Retrieve all Online Perl Scripts/ 60. FTP Sites For Biology (56 archives for software and data)/ And the list goes on - this is just the beginning.