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Even with tools like Hytelnet and archie, telnet and ftp can still be frustrating. There are all those telnet and ftp addresses to remember. Telnet services often have their own unique commands. And, oh, those weird directory and file names!
But now that the Net has become a rich repository of information, people are developing ways to make it far easier to find and retrieve information and files. Gophers and Wide-Area Information Servers (WAISs) are two services that could ultimately make the Internet as easy to navigate as commercial networks such as CompuServe or Prodigy.
Both gophers and WAISs essentially take a request for information and then scan the Net for it, so you don't have to. Both also work through menus -- instead of typing in some long sequence of characters, you just move a cursor to your choice and hit enter. Gophers even let you select files and programs from ftp sites this way.
Let's first look at gophers (named for the official mascot of the University of Minnesota, where the system was developed).
Many public-access sites now have gophers online. To use one, type
gopher
at the command prompt and hit enter. If you know your site does not have a gopher, or if nothing happens when you type that, telnet to
consultant.micro.umn.edu
At the log-in prompt, type
gopher
and hit enter. You'll be asked what type of terminal emulation you're using, after which you'll see something like this:
Internet Gopher Information Client v1.03
Root gopher server: gopher.micro.umn.edu
--> 1. Information About Gopher/
2. Computer Information/
3. Discussion Groups/
4. Fun & Games/
5. Internet file server (ftp) sites/
6. Libraries/
7. News/
8. Other Gopher and Information Servers/
9. Phone Books/
10. Search lots of places at the U of M <?>
11. University of Minnesota Campus Information/
Press ? for Help, q to Quit, u to go up a menu Page: 1/1
Assuming you're using VT100 or some other VT emulation, you'll be able to move among the choices with your up and down arrow keys. When you have your cursor on an entry that looks interesting, just hit enter, and you'll either get a new menu of choices, a database entry form, or a text file, depending on what the menu entry is linked to (more on how to tell which you'll get in a moment).
Gophers are great for exploring the resources of the Net. Just keep making choices to see what pops up. Play with it; see where it takes you. Some choices will be documents. When you read one of these and either come to the end or hit a lower-case `q' to quit reading it, you'll be given the choice of saving a copy to your home directory or e-mailing it to yourself. Other choices are simple databases that let you enter a word to look for in a particular database. To get back to where you started on a gopher, hit your `u' key at a menu prompt, which will move you back "up" through the gopher menu structure (much like "cd .." in ftp).
Notice that one of your choices above is "Internet file server (ftp) sites." Choose this, and you'll be connected to a modified archie program -- an archie with a difference. When you search for a file through a gopher archie, you'll get a menu of sites that have the file you're looking for, just as with the old archie. Only now, instead of having to write down or remember an ftp address and directory, all you have to do is position the cursor next to one of the numbers in the menu and hit enter. You'll be connected to the ftp site, from which you can then choose the file you want. This time, move the cursor to the file you want and hit a lower-case `s'. You'll be asked for a name in your home directory to use for the file, after which the file will be copied to your home system. Unfortunately, this file-transfer process does not yet work with all public-access sites for computer programs and compressed files. If it doesn't work with yours, you'll have to get the file the old-fashioned way, via anonymous ftp.
In addition to ftp sites, there are hundreds of databases and libraries around the world accessible through gophers. There is not yet a common gopher interface for library catalogs, so be prepared to follow the online directions more closely when you use gopher to connect to one.
Gopher menu entries that end in a `/' are gateways to another menu of options. Entries that end in a period are text, graphics or program files, which you can retrieve to your home directory (or e-mail to yourself or to somebody else). A line that ends in `<?>' or `<CSO>' represents a request you can make to a database for information. The difference is that `<?>' entries call up one-line interfaces in which you can search for a keyword or words, while `<CSO>' brings up an electronic form with several fields for you to fill out (you might see this in online "White Pages" directories at colleges).
Gophers actually let you perform some relatively sophisticated Boolean searches. For example, if you want to search only for files that contain the words "MS-DOS" and "Macintosh," you'd type
ms-dos and macintosh
(gophers are not case-sensitive) in the keyword field. Alternately, if you want to get a list of files that mention either "MS-DOS" or "Macintosh," you'd type
ms-dos or macintosh
One is with archie's friend, veronica (it allegedly is an acronym, but don't believe that for a second), who does for gopherspace what archie does for ftp sites.
In most gophers, you'll find veronica by selecting "Other gopher and information services" at the main menu and then "Searching through gopherspace using veronica." Select this and you'll get something like this:
Internet Gopher Information Client v1.1
--> 1. Search titles in Gopherspace using veronica.
2. FAQ: Frequently-Asked Questions about veronica (1993/08/23).
3. How to compose veronica queries (NEW June 24) READ ME!!.
4. Search Gopher Directory Titles at PSINet <?>
5. Search Gopher Directory Titles at SUNET <?>
6. Search Gopher Directory Titles at U. of Manitoba <?>
7. Search Gopher Directory Titles at University of Cologne <?>
8. Search gopherspace at PSINet <?>
9. Search gopherspace at SUNET <?>
10. Search gopherspace at U. of Manitoba <?>
11. Search gopherspace at University of Cologne <?>
Press ? for Help, q to Quit, u to go up a menu Page: 1/1
A few choices there! First, the difference between searching directory titles and just plain ol' gopherspace. If you already know the sort of directory you're looking for (say a directory containing MS-DOS programs), do a directory-title search. But if you're not sure what kind of directory your information might be in, then do a general gopherspace search. In general, it doesn't matter which of the particular veronicas you use -- they should all be able to produce the same results. The reason there is more than one is because the Internet has become so popular that only one veronica (or one gopher or one of almost anything) would quickly be overwhelmed by all the information requests from around the world.
You can use veronica to search for almost anything. Want to find museums that might have online displays from their exhibits? Try searching for "museum." Looking for a copy of the Declaration of Independence? Try "declaration."
In many cases, your search will bring up a new gopher menu of choices to try.
Say you want to impress those guests coming over for dinner on Friday by cooking cherries flambe. If you were to call up veronica and type in "flambe" after calling up veronica, you would soon get a menu listing several flambe recipes, including one called "dessert flambe." Put your cursor on that line of the menu and hit enter, and you'll find it's a menu for cherries flambe. Then hit your `q' key to quit, and gopher will ask you if you want to save the file in your home directory on your public-access site or whether you want to e-mail it somewhere.
As you can see, you can use veronica as an alternative to archie, which, because of the Internet's growing popularity, seems to take longer and longer to work.
In addition to archie and veronica, we now also have jugheads (no bettys yet, though). These work the same as veronicas, but their searches are limited to the specific gopher systems on which they reside.
If there are particular gopher resources you use frequently, there are a couple of ways to get to them even more directly.
One is to use gopher in a manner similar to the way you can use telnet. If you know a particular gopher's Internet address (often the same as its telnet or ftp address), you can connect to it directly, rather than going through menus. For example, say you want to use the gopher at info.umd.edu. If your public-access site has a gopher system installed, type this
gopher info.umd.eduand you'll be connected.
But even that can get tedious if there are several gophers you use frequently. That's where bookmarks come in. Gophers let you create a list of your favorite gopher sites and even database queries. Then, instead of digging ever deeper into the gopher directory structure, you just call up your bookmark list and select the service you want.
To create a bookmark for a particular gopher site, first call up gopher. Then go through all the gopher menus until you get to the menu you want. Type a capital `A'. You'll be given a suggested name for the bookmark enty, which you can change if you want by backspacing over the suggestion and typing in your own. When done, hit enter. Now, whenever you're in gopherspace and want to zip back to that particular gopher service, just hit your `V' key (upper- or lower-case; in this instance, gopher doesn't care) anywhere within gopher. This will bring up a list of your bookmarks. Move to the one you want and hit enter, and you'll be connected.
Using a capital `A' is also good for saving particular database or veronica queries that you use frequently (for example, searching for news stories on a particular topic if your public-access site maintains an indexed archive of wire-service news).
Instead of a capital `A', you can also hit a lower-case `a'. This will bring you to the particular line within a menu, rather than show you the entire menu.
If you ever want to delete a bookmark, hit `V' within gopher, select the item you want to get rid of, and then hit your `D' key. One more hint: If you want to find the address of a particular gopher service, hit your `=' key after you've highlighted its entry in a gopher menu. You'll get back a couple of lines, most of which will be technicalese of no immediate value to most folks, but some of which will consist of the site's address.
a
A
d
q
Q
s
u
v
=
>
<
gopher sitename
at your command line. Can't find what you're looking for? Remember to use veronica to look up categories and topics!
galaxy.ucr.edu The California Musuem of Art maintains its own online gallery here. At the main menu, select "Campus Events," then "California Museum of Photography," then "Network Exhibitions."
sumex-aim.stanford.edu A similar type of system, with the emphasis on Macintosh programs and files.
envirolink.org Dozens of documents and files related to environmental activism around the world.
gopher.lib.umich.edu Another source for a wide variety of government information, from Congressional committee assignments to information on NAFTA to economic statistics. ecix.doc.gov Information on conversion of military installations to private uses, run by the Department of Commerce.
sunsite.unc.edu Copies of the 1993 and 1994 U.S. federal budgets can be found by going into "Sunsite archives," then "Politics," then "Sunsite political science archives."
wiretap.spies.com Various documents related to the government and constitution of Canada can be found in the "Government docs" area.
darcms1.dartmouth.edu Look for government jobs in the "Jobs" menu.
stis.nih.gov Go into the "Other U.S. government gopher servers" area for access to numerous other government gophers.
helix.nih.gov The National Cancer Institute provides detailed factsheets on different cancers. Select "Health and clinical information" and then "Cancernet information."
nysernet.org Look for information on breast cancer in the "Special Collections: Breast Cancer" menu.
welchlink.welch.jhu.edu This is Johns Hopkins University's medical gopher.
wx.atmos.uiuc.edu Look up weather forecasts for North America or bone up on your weather facts.
Students at the University of Michigan's School of Information and Library Studies, recently compiled separate lists of Internet resources in 11 specific areas, from aeronautics to theater. They can be obtained via gopher at gopher.lib.umich.edu, in the "What's New and Featured Resources" menu.
Now you know there are hundreds of databases and library catalogs you can search through. But as you look, you begin to realize that each seems to have its own unique method for searching. If you connect to several, this can become a pain. Gophers reduce this problem somewhat.
Wide-area information servers promise another way to zero in on information hidden on the Net. In a WAIS, the user sees only one interface -- the program worries about how to access information on dozens, even hundreds, of different databases. You give a WAIS a word and it scours the net looking for places where it's mentioned. You get a menu of documents, each ranked according to how relevant to your search the WAIS thinks it is.
Like gophers, WAIS "client" programs can already be found on many public-access Internet sites. If your system has a WAIS client, type
swais
at the command prompt and hit enter (the "s" stands for "simple"). If it doesn't, telnet to bbs.oit.unc.edu, which is run by the University of North Carolina At the "login:" prompt, type
bbs
and hit enter. You'll be asked to register and will then get a list of "bulletins," which are various files explaining how the system works. When done with those, hit your Q key and you'll get another menu. Hit 4 for the "simple WAIS client," and you'll see something like this:
SWAIS Source Selection Sources: 23# Server Source Cost 001: [ archie.au] aarnet-resource-guide Free 002: [ archive.orst.edu] aeronautics Free 003: [nostromo.oes.orst.ed] agricultural-market-news Free 004: [sun-wais.oit.unc.edu] alt-sys-sun Free 005: [ archive.orst.edu] alt.drugs Free 006: [ wais.oit.unc.edu] alt.gopher Free 007: [sun-wais.oit.unc.edu] alt.sys.sun Free 008: [ wais.oit.unc.edu] alt.wais Free 009: [ archive.orst.edu] archie-orst.edu Free 010: [ archie.au] archie.au-amiga-readmes Free 011: [ archie.au] archie.au-ls-lRt Free 012: [ archie.au] archie.au-mac-readmes Free 013: [ archie.au] archie.au-pc-readmes Free 014: [ pc2.pc.maricopa.edu] ascd-education Free 015: [ archie.au] au-directory-of-servers Free 016: [ cirm2.univ-mrs.fr] bib-cirm Free 017: [ cmns-sun.think.com] bible Free 018: [ zenon.inria.fr] bibs-zenon-inria-fr Free Keywords: <space> selects, w for keywords, arrows move, <return> searches, q quits, ?
Each line represents a different database (the .au at the end of some of them means they are in Australia; the .fr on the last line represents a database in France). And this is just the first page! If you type a capital K, you'll go to the next page (there are several pages). Hitting a capital J will move you back a page.
The first thing you want to do is tell the WAIS program which databases you want searched. To select a database, move the cursor bar over the line you want (using your down and up arrow keys) and hit your space bar. An asterisk will appear next to the line number. Repeat this until you've selected all of the databases you want searched. Then hit your W key, after which you'll be prompted for the key words you're looking for. You can type in an entire line of these words -- separate each with a space, not a comma.
Hit return, and the search begins.
Let's say you're utterly fascinated with wheat. So you might select agricultural-market-news to find its current world price. But you also want to see if it has any religious implications, so you choose the Bible and the Book of Mormon. What do you do with the stuff? Select recipes and usenet-cookbook. Are there any recent Supreme Court decisions involving the plant? Chose supreme-court. How about synonyms? Try roget-thesaurus and just plain thesaurus.
Now hit w and type in wheat. Hit enter, and the WAIS program begins its search. As it looks, it tells you whether any of the databases are offline, and if so, when they might be ready for a search. In about a minute, the program tells you how many hits it's found. Then you get a new menu, that looks something like this:
Keywords: # Score SourceTitleLines 001: [1000] (roget-thesaurus) #465. [results of comparison. 1] Di 19 002: [1000] (roget-thesaurus) #609. Choice. -- N. choice, option; 36 003: [1000] (roget-thesaurus) #465. [results of comparison. 1] Di 19 004: [1000] (roget-thesaurus) #609. Choice. -- N. choice, option; 36 005: [1000] (recipes) aem@mthvax Re: MONTHLY: Rec.Food.Recipes 425 006: [1000] ( Book_of_Mormon) Mosiah 9:96 007: [1000] ( Book_of_Mormon) 3 Nephi 18:185 008: [1000] (agricultural-ma) Re: JO GR115, WEEKLY GRAIN82 009: [ 822] (agricultural-ma) Re: WA CB351 PROSPECTIVE PLANTINGS 552 010: [ 800] ( recipes) kms@apss.a Re: REQUEST: Wheat-free, Suga 35 011: [ 750] (agricultural-ma) Re: WA CB101 CROP PRODUCTION258 012: [ 643] (agricultural-ma) Re: SJ GR850 DAILY NAT GRN SUM72 013: [ 400] ( recipes) pat@jaamer Re: VEGAN: Honey Granola63 014: [ 400] ( recipes) jrtrint@pa Re: OVO-LACTO: Sourdough/Trit 142
Each of these represents an article or citing that contains the word wheat, or some related word. Move the cursor bar (with the down and up arrow keys) to the one you want to see, hit enter, and it will begin to appear on your screen. The "score" is a WAIS attempt to gauge how closely the citing matches your request. Doesn't look like the Supreme Court has had anything to say about the plant of late!
Now think of how much time you would have spent logging onto various databases just to find these relatively trivial examples.
Developed by researchers at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, the World-Wide Web is somewhat similar to a WAIS. But it's designed on a system known as hypertext. Words in one document are "linked" to other documents. It's sort of like sitting with an encyclopedia -- you're reading an article, see a reference that intrigues you and so flip the pages to look up that reference.
To take a walk on The Web try the WWW's (or W3 in the project's own jargon), default telnet site:
info.cern.ch
No log in is needed. When you connect, you'll see something like:
Overview of the Web
GENERAL OVERVIEW
There is no "top" to the World-Wide Web. You can look at it from many points
of view. If you have no other bias, here are some places to start:
by Subject[1] A classification by subject of interest. Incomplete
but easiest to use.
by Type[2] Looking by type of service (access protocol, etc) may
allow to find things if you know what you are looking
for.
About WWW[3] About the World-Wide Web global information sharing
project
Starting somewhere else
To use a different default page, perhaps one representing your field of
interest, see "customizing your home page"[4].
What happened to CERN?
1-6, Up, <RETURN> for more, Quit, or Help:
Ok. Now type `3', and get the following screen:
The World Wide Web project
WORLD WIDE WEB
The WorldWideWeb (W3) is a wide-area hypermedia[1] information retrieval
initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents.
Everything there is online about W3 is linked directly or indirectly to this
document, including an executive summary[2] of the project, an illustrated
talk[3] , Mailing lists[4] , Policy[5] and Conditions[6] , May's W3 news[7]
, Frequently Asked Questions[8] .
What's out there?[9] Pointers to the world's online information,
subjects[10] , W3 servers[11] , etc.
WWW Software Products[12]
What there is and how to get it: clients, servers and
tools.
Technical[13] Details of protocols, formats, program internals etc
Bibliography[14] Paper documentation on W3 and references. Also:
manuals[15] .
1-20, Back, Up, <RETURN> for more, Quit, or Help:
You navigate the web by typing the number next to a given reference. So if you want to know more about the web, hit 2. This is another system that bears playing with.
If you are used to plain-vanilla Unix or MS-DOS, then the way these gophers and WAISs work seems quite straightforward. But if you're used to a computer with a graphical interface, such as a Macintosh, an IBM compatible with Windows or a Next, you'll probably regard their interfaces as somewhat primitive. And even to a veteran MS-DOS user, the World-Wide Web interface is rather clunky (and some of the documents and files on the Web now use special formatting that would confuse your poor computer).
There are, however, ways to integrate these services into your graphical user interface. In fact, there are now ways to tie into the Internet directly, rather than relying on whatever interface your public-access system uses, through what are known as "client" programs. These programs provide graphical interfaces for everything from ftp to the World-Wide Web.
There is now a growing number of these "client" programs for everything from ftp to gopher. PSI of Reston, Va., which offers nationwide Internet access, in fact, requires its customers to use these programs. Using protocols known as SLIP and PPP, these programs communicate with the Net using the same basic data packets as much larger computers online.
Beyond integration with your own computer's "desktop," client programs let you do more than one thing at once on the net -- while you're downloading a large file in one window, you can be chatting with a friend through an Internet chat program in another.
Unfortunately, using a client program can cost a lot of money. Some require you to be connected directly to the Internet through an Ethernet network for example. Others work through modem protocols, such as SLIP, but public-access sites that allow such access may charge anywhere from $25 to $200 a month extra for the service.
Your system administrator can give you more information on setting up one of these connections.
As the Internet grows ever more popular, its resources come under more of a strain. If you try to use gopher in the middle of the day, at least on the East Coast of the U.S., you'll sometimes notice that it takes a very long time for particular menus or database searches to come up. Sometimes, you'll even get a message that there are too many people connected to whichever service you're trying to use and so you can't get in. The only alternative is to either try again in 20 minutes or so, or wait until later in the day, when the load might be lower. When this happens in veronica, try one of the other veronica entries.
When you retrieve a file through gopher, you'll sometimes be asked if you want to store it under some ludicrously long name (there go our friends the system administrators again, using 128 characters just because Unix lets them). With certain MS-DOS communications programs, if that name is longer than one line, you won't be able to backspace all the way back to the first line if you want to give it a simpler name. Backspace as far as you can. Then, when you get ready to download it to your home computer, remember that the file name will be truncated on your end, because of MS-DOS's file-naming limitations. Worse, your computer might even reject the whole thing. What to do? Instead of saving it to your home directory, mail it to yourself. It should show up in your mail by the time you exit gopher. Then, use your mail command for saving it to your home directory -- at which point you can name it anything you want. Now you can download it.
David Riggins maintains a list of gophers by type and category. You can find the most recent one at the ftp site ftp.einet.net, in the pub directory. Look for a file with a name like `gopher-jewels.txt'. Alternately, you can get on a mailing list to get the latest version sent to your e-mailbox automatically. Send a mail message to <gopherjewelslist-request@tpis.cactus .org> (yep, that first part is all one word). Leave the "subject:" line blank, and as a message, write SUBSCRIBE.
The Interpedia project is an attempt to take gopher one step further, by creating an online repository of all of the interesting and useful information availble on the Net and from its users. To get on the mailing list for the project, send an e-mail message, with a "subject:" of "subscribe" to <interpedia-request@telerama.lm.com>. You can get supporting documentation for the project via anonymous ftp at ftp.lm.com in the `pub/interpedia' directory.
See also the Usenet newsgroups comp.infosystems.*:
comp.infosystems.gopher, comp.infosystems.wais, and comp.infosystems.www are places to go for technical discussions about Gopher, WAISs, and the World-Wide Web project respectively. Moreover there are comp.infosystems for more general discussion of related issues. The group comp.infosystems.gis relates to Geographic Information Systems, and thus is more specialized on this subject.
At present, there are no veronica clients; veronica is a gopher tool. An informal veronica FAQ is posted regularly in comp.infosystems.gopher and archived on veronica.scs.unr.edu as `veronica/veronica-faq'.
There even exists a Gopher service to read Usenet news: `gopher gopher.msu.edu 4320'. But, the lines behind this service are few, and thus it's likely that you get the following message, when trying to enter:
We are sorry, but our Usenet News gateway limits the number of simultaneous connections. If you were attempting to read news and were instead directed to this file, all of those connections are in use. We offer this gateway as a "last resort" for people who have no other access for reading Usenet. We do not have the capacity to serve as the Usenet gateway for large numbers of users around the Internet. Individuals who like this style of access should ask their Internet service providers to offer the same sort of gateway on their local Gopher server. Individuals and campuses should consider installing local news feeds and local news readers (such as RN, NN, TIN, or Trumpet) so that users can read and post to Usenet newsgroups conveniently. For system administrators: the software we use to implement this gateway is the go4gw Gopher gateway software from Roland Schemers of Stanford University. This software should be available by anonymous ftp from boombox.micro.umn.edu, somewhere under /pub/gopher. -- The Michigan State University Gopher Team
"Reliable information is the basis of successful planning." --- Christoph Columbus 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.