Chapters 3 : Basic Internet Services

Sections 2 : Infromation on the Internet

Gopher and Archie

Gopher is Similar to the web, such that you connect to it without knowing where it is. The difference is once connected, the information is provided in a hierarchical system of menus. These menu items are pointer or links. Each link will take you to the next menu until you reach your destination. The advantage of gopher is you do not need to know where the file is stored.

Gopher is a client/server system. In order to use gopher you must run a program called Gopher client. The client does all the searching and displaying of menus. Plus the Gopher client helps you save the information that you retreive. Sometimes Gopher search are slow. The best thing to do in this case is to wait. It is difficult to stop a Gopher's activity in progress. A Gopher provides the capability to use bookmarks to create shortcuts.

Archie is a tool that helps you find information on ther Internet. Archie helps you access files and directories on anonymous FTP hosts. Archie is a huge extensive and indexed database. It lists all the files that can be downloaded from the most popular FTP sites. When a request comes in it searches its databasea dn displays the name of the Anonymous FTP hosts that contain the information you are looking for. There are many options and environmental variables that can be set. Use the 'show' command to get a display. In order to perform a search use the find command. There are three ways that one can access archie. They are by using telnet, archie client, and using e-mail.


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