Tuesday, 13. April 2004

Gopher: Underground Technology


Back in 1992, when "yahoo" was something cowboys yelled and "ebay" was just pig Latin, the University of Minnesota developed a new way of looking at data on the Internet. Their protocol, called "gopher" after the UMN mascot, allowed archivists to present the mishmash of information in a standard format, and enabled readers to navigate documents on a world of servers using a simple visual interface.

For a while, it seemed as if gopher might open the Internet up to the nontechnical masses and usher in a new era of online communication. It very well might have, if the Web hadn't come along and done it instead.

¬> wired.com

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