<Section 18.1> Gopher
Gopher was created by two students, xx and xx, at the University of Minnesota. It provides a menu-like view of that part of the Internet where Gopher servers are found, "gopherspace". Gopher has spread to many universities. You can search student directories and campus calendars, as well as the usual internet resources. It is by far the easiest way to explore the net without entering numerous FTP and telnet commands.
Since Gopher is the oldest and most decentralized of the services, it provides the most extensive access to useful services. Online library catalogues, the Project Gutenberg library, FTP archives, and numerous exits to telnet.
The telnet access to demonstration Gopher systems (and through them to
Gopher servers on *any* campus) is through:
xxx.xxx.xxx
Students will of course want to use Gopher directly from their school's system. Try typing "gopher" at any prompt.
<Section 18.2> Wide Area Information Services (WAIS)
WAIS was developed in a very different environment from Gopher. It was developed by a joint collaboration of Thinking Machines, Inc. (Artificial Intellegence technology), Dow Jones News Retrieval (Information systems), and Apple Computer (User interface). Its ability to find information given a plain English description of what you want ("hey, find everthing on Personal Computers and Health) is truely mind- boggling. It returns a list of "hits" together with a likelihood that it contains what you wanted. It can also look for documents that are "something like" a sample document.
The user interface is a pleasure to use—but requires a direct or SLIP connection to the Internet. The line-oriented version that is publically available is a pale imitation of the real thing.
WAIS strength is its ability to retrieve information from almost any source, not just FTP sites. A list of all WAIS sources is maintained in a directory-of-directories (available at think.com). You import a set of instructions on how to access a given information server to create your own personalized list of sources.