gopher

n. Software developed by the University of Minnesota (home of the Golden Gophers) for tunneling through a TCP/IP internet.

gopherspace

n. An information matrix that is accessed using Internet Gopher.

Gopher is a tool for getting resources from the Internet, like text and software, telnet connections to libraries, news, weather, recipes...the information is growing every day. You can choose what you want from a menu, instead of entering a lot of cryptic commands. All 2000+ Gophers are connected to each other, so it's just as easy to find something in Wellington, New Zealand as it is on your local Gopher server.

What's available on Gopher?

• Computer information and software
• E-mail addresses
• Phone numbers
• Zip Codes
• Campus mail codes
• The Periodic Table
• Recipes
• Movie Reviews
• News
• USA Today (Tech only)
• Usenet news
• White House press releases
• weather
• Electronic Books
• the Bible
• the Koran
• the CIA World Fact Book
• the complete works of Shakespeare
• Alice in Wonderland, Moby Dick and other classics
• Library catalogs, including VTLS and the Library of Congress
• Telnet connections to NASA Spacelink, Cleveland Free-Net,
• World Wide Web, and WAIS (Wide Area Information Servers)
• And much, much more.... (and growing every day!)

There are several types of items available on Gopher: text files, directories, binary files, telnet sessions, and search engines. These are usually denoted by icons or letters.

Binary files enable you to download files (e.g. software, graphics). When you click on this item type, a window (or "dialog box") will open, asking you to name the file for storage on your hard disk.

Clicking on a telnet item will launch a telnet session to another host computer, meaning you can log in to systems like VTLS or The Weather Machine without knowing the host machine's address or invoking any complicated commands.

Search engines prompt you for a keyword, then return the search results to you.