Gopher Novice - Part VIII.
==========================
Cont. [Gopher Novice - Part VII].
I'd like to summarize answers for my question about [Cont. how you were
using the Internet in the 1991-1995 and 1995-2005?] in aspect of Gopher,
what was the main intension of that question. I got about thirty answers,
and they are describing about twenty people who were using the net in
that times. They could use Gopher, sometimes they did so, sometimes
they didn't (what is also some information). All answers can be found by
the links at the bottom, or on the SDF internal board. I try to respect
privacy and cut only essence of Gopher topic from every answer. I used
given names or nicks to mark that they aren't my thougts. If someone
would like to modify their statement or hide some information, please
contact me.
Hypotheses
----------
After I've read answers I have the following hypotheses:
* The most answers are connected with academic theme for using Gopher.
* There was Gopher in non-academic environment, for eg. private
companies.
* Active BBS users didn't need Gopher.
* Gopher didn't have many personal thoughts or less serious stuff
(which were distributed for eg. in zines, BBS, e-mail).
* Problem with finding things on Gopher could be crucial, and
Veronica-like services didn't have time to became mature.
* People weren't impressed with Gopher then, as they were by other
net's goodies (for eg. BBS).
* Gopher was available for some years, but it wasn't developed in
new content.
How often did you use Gopher in 90's?
-------------------------------------
Normally | #### (20%)
Occasionally | ########### (55%)
Never | ##### (25%)
Years mentioned in answers
--------------------------
General 90's | #######
1992 | #
1993 | ###
1994 | ####
1995 | ###
1998 | #
Answers
---------
1. Alex:
``
[...] I took me a while until I finally did get access. When I went
to university in 1994 [...] There was a young dude there telling me
a thing or two. How to use finger.
I think I learned about the tools available from welcome messages
and local help menus. I suspect it was all Gopher, back then. [...]
2. Gerikson:
``
[...] I moved to Stockholm and started at KTH in 1992. [...]
In our class about information retrieval held by the university
library I read about Gopher and something new from CERN called the
"world wide web", which looked interesting but was way less structured
than Gopher. [...]
3. Kelson:
``
By 1990 my family had moved [...] to what was then known as an "IBM
Compatible" PC. [...] Then I got to college and discovered "Mosaic"
at the computer labs.
[...] Gopher was still around but fading fast. I remember looking
things up occasionally, mostly using Netscape or Lynx. I'm
half-convinced that I used a gopher-specific client once or twice
in one of the labs, and there was one on the floppy full of internet
utilities, but I can't remember anything specific about it. The school
had a gopher space, but it may have only been official documents like
course catalogs. If they had student space available, I never set up
on it. [...]
4. Jeffrey:
``
I was born in 1988, so I was too young during 1991-1995. My first
time using the Internet was in 1998. [...]
5. Beto:
``
[...] I applied for college at the end of 1995. I don't remember using
a Gopher a lot in this period, but I used it to access the university
and check the results from the entrance examination. That's how I
discovered I was going to college: via Gopher. [...]
6. Sandra:
``
[...] That was my 90s. Email, email, email and IRC. [...]
7. Tomasino:
``
i was basically just on BBSes and Prodigy at the time. Email through
FidoNet in 1995 I was a beta user of (Skimmer) what would become
Prodigy Internet, finally getting truly online. I also got USENET
access around then.
8. Lux:
``
Mix of ftp discovery (through http sources usually) and gopher
itself. Mostly the http route tbh. Gopher indexing was developing at
the time but didn't really make the cut before it got devolved. It
was promising, but FTP / HTTP at the time got you more "interesting
stuff" most of the time.
Was a long time back. [Gopher] Accessed through uni network when I was
working there, so was mostly tech related info I was looking for. Did
have lunch breaks though, so did explore a bit for "what else is on
here?". Memory isn't great on how well it went, feels like it was
more of a novelty / last option at the time
9. Everbern:
``
My first tech support job was with IBM. They had an amazing, surfable
LAN. Internal FTP and Gopher sites, accessible modem banks for
BBSing. It's a wonder I got any work done.
[Gopher sites] I'm not sure they were "official". I remember there
being all sorts of stuff: from tech info to ascii art to fiction. A
subset of what you'd find on textfiles.com now. I recall reading many
Lovecraft stories someone had taken the time to type into text files.
10. The Doctor:
``
Dial up BBSes. The odd BBS network (LilNet, VampNET). No real
net.access until maybe '94 when I stumbled into a certain SunOS
network.
11. Kermode:
``
n 91-93 a friend in govt gave me the credentials to his internet
account. They charge by the *byte* back then where I live!
I used my Amiga to log into various universities around the world
ftp-ing stuff I found with gopher back to UBC. Finally, I'd pull
everything down from there to my local computer in Terrace.
Not long after that, I got into linux.
12. Fuuma:
``
I was using CompuServe and Usenet in the early 90s, and then I started
using IRC with mIRC in the early 2000s. I did use gopher once or
twice in the early 90s as well.
[Using Gopher for] I think it was using Netscape Navigator... and it
wasn't anything academic, just wanted to browse around and see what
it offered at the time.
13. Michael:
``
[...] around 93-94, began using Usenet, ftp, gopher, and some www
from college.
If you were doing real research from the library, it seemed like
ftp and
gopher were more information rich, and there were lots of gopher
sites with
"tunnels" to other sites. For me as young and kind of immature,
the www
seemed mainly for entertainment, though more and more useful things
started
creeping in, and then it exploded. In short order, the www was
the place
to be, and development of gopher sites stopped. I'd say by 1995
this was
true. The gopher sites that were already there hung around for
some time
after, but with no improvements. They were allowed to wither. [...]
14. Anna:
``
[...] I briefly saw gopher circa 1994, I think, on a green-on-black
terminal in
the school library, as a research tool. It is a front-end to FTP that
allows imposing a web structure on hierarchical filesystems networked
across great distances, designed by librarians.
I never saw the humor, enthusiast, etc content from the (later)
'90s you
link to back then. I saw that type of material in 'zines at the
time. Other
people saw it on BBSs, usenet, and email lists. My understanding
of gopher
was it was like an encyclopedia, or a card catalog linked directly to
library materials.
cont. Anna:
``
Maybe gopher acquired social media vibe in wake of atrophying pre-http
"social media" (like BBSs, USENET, and MOOs).
15. Secretdecoder:
``
[...] Then I got to college in Fall 1993. [...]
Quickly figured out how to use email, gopher, & lynx. Archie.
Veronica.
Gopher did indeed have the most content. But it was a bit of
a treasure
hunt. Linking through and trying to find stuff. [...]
16. Dan:
``
[...] Gopher in particular never made much of an impression on me. It
was marginally useful for accessing specific information, but
USENET as both a collaborative space and directory of pointers
to other resources elsewhere on the net, coupled with telnet and
FTP were much more broadly useful. The "archie" protocol was
similarly useful for finding things across anonymous FTP sites. [...]
cont. Dan:
``
[...] I have fond memories of telnet,
talk, and VMS phone. Even using a 3270 terminal to access a
mainframe to some extent. The early wide-scale information
systems including gopher and the early web were less interesting [...]
17. Anna about Wayne:
``
Wayne was administering a BBS when gopher was in its growth phase,
so kind
of missed it. By the time he got interested in browsing linked
documents
via internet, http was ascendent.
18. Anna about Christina:
``
Christina's primary internet social world was MOOs and MUSHs. She
remembers
gopher had the library vibe you noted, downloading software via FTP,
content reposted from USENET.
19. Xiled:
``
Around 1993 [...]
Also around that time, I attended a local university, [...]
It also had access to gopher, veronica, jughead, and WAIS (Wide Area
Information Server.) [...]
Back then, gopher and WAIS didn't have much appeal for me,
especially since it was used mostly for academic stuff. Nobody
that I was aware of had personal gopherholes and the personal home
pages were on the web. I was still drawn to the BBS communities,
but the new SLIP/PPP accounts and the Internet that it connected to
had my curiosity as well.
20. nm03:
``
I found Gopher in 1995 and accessed it through a VAX terminal. I
didn't have
anyone to tell me what it was, so I exlored it on my own. I remember
there
being Telnet links, like places to check the weather, and humor
collections. I
soon moved on to using Netscape and didn't get back into Gopher
until joining
SDF a few years ago.
~ [Gopher Novice - Part VII]:
gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-09-12-Gopher-novice-part-vii.gmi
~ [Cont. how you were using the Internet in the 1991-1995 and 1995-2005?]:
gemini://szczezuja.space/gemlog/2021-12-11-Cont-how-you-were-using-the-Internet.gmi
~ :
https://mastodon.online/@szczezuja/107605562986447761
~ Anonradio archives 2022-01-26 at 0:53-1:10:
https://archives.anonradio.net/202201260200_openvoip.mp3
~
gopher://sdf.org/1/users/xiled/phlog/2022/20220125_intarnets_2of2
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