Gopher in Poland
================

Excerpt from [Historia stron internetowych BG UMK]:

``
[...] The beginning of the Internet in Poland dates back to August 17,
1991, when the first exchange of e-mail between Poland and the world
took place via a 9600 bps link to Copenhagen. [...]
The first website of the University Library in Torun was made with
the help of IT specialists in 1993 in the new GOPHER information
technology. It was just one page of text without an illustration,
containing information about the library, telephone, and e-mail. It
operated for a very short time and actually did not fulfill a
particularly large communication role, because in Poland no one had
"gopher" sites and hardly anyone at that time had network connections.
It was rather a signal to the world that the University Library in
Torun exists and it is possible to communicate with it, as well as an
introductory exercise for future editors of the Library's websites. [...]

The Internet in Poland started decades later (probably the same as in
the rest of Eastern Europe) than in most of the world. After the
collapse of the Soviet block, the first Internet connection took place
in 1991. It did not mean that at that moment users had universal access
to the Internet.

Announcement of /gopher.torun.edu.pl/ was on [Usenet 13-12-1992]. More
than one year later, [Usenet 05-06-1994] sites was reported as being
down. Gophersphere in Poland started with delay, and the whole Internet
in Poland was so immature, that polish history of Gopher seems to be
very short.

[All of the Gophers in the World] index mentioned four educational sites:

* Nicolas Copernicus University in Torun, (PL)

* University of Economics, Poznan, (PL)

* University of Mining and Metallurgy, Cracow, (PL)

* Warsaw Univ. of Technology, Institute of Automatic Control, (PL)

Today situation of the net in Poland is of course totally different.
Three decades later Poles have rather cheap access to the broadband
Internet and mobiles (LTE and 5G). What is interesting some echoes of
the past is [Archie at icm.edu.pl] is still operating.


~ [Historia stron internetowych BG UMK]
 https://repozytorium.umk.pl/bitstream/handle/item/3046/strony%20www%20BGUMK2.pdf?sequence=1
~ [Usenet 13-12-1992]
 https://groups.google.com/g/alt.gopher/c/GIx59Niq09Y/m/T3TajvPmB0oJ
~ [Usenet 05-06-1994]
 https://groups.google.com/g/alt.gopher/c/j7R0nY7TaO0/m/efyLI3uyp1kJ
~ [All of the Gophers in the World]:
 https://archive.org/details/allgophers_all_the_gophers_in_the_world_when_i_was_in_1995_charlote_greenwood
~ [Archie at icm.edu.pl]
 gopher://gopher.zcrayfish.soy:70/1/phlog/20210321-wow-archie-is-still-around

--
szczezuja.space
@ Fri 11 Mar 2022 06:51:14 PM CET