[Ads-l] "Gopher file" -- new to me and the OED

[Amy West]

I, and I bet a bunch of other folks here, remember Gopher.

The growth was not so much stunted as they were displaced by this Web 
thing. . .

---Amy West

On 12/9/15 12:00 AM, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
> Date:    Wed, 9 Dec 2015 01:38:43 +0000
> From:    Joel Berson<berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: "Gopher file" -- new to me and the OED
>
> Should "Gopher file" be in the OED?  (Perhaps not, considering my last sentence below.)  But I do notice here another tunneling animal, like the mole.
>
>
> "When H-Net began in 1994, email was a rarity, the internet was a collection of text-based gopher files that you could access if you knew the right commands, and scholars in small departments or isolated areas never had the chance to talk with someone else in their field. Into these dark times,"
>
> [Email message, 2015 Dec. 8.]
> ----------
>
>   "This column is the first in what we hope will be a series relatedto the use of Internet resources by media personnel in highereducation. Planned future columns will explore Internet "lists,"Usenet, and documents available through file transfer protocol(ftp). Our initial effort will examine Gopher, one of thefastest growing and potentially one of the most useful of allInternet features.
>
> "WHAT IS GOPHER?
>   "The developers of Gopher at the University of Minnesota (henceits name) define it as "software following a simple protocol fortunneling through a TCP/IP Internet." In plain English, Gopheris software that enables you to gain easy access to documents anddatabases worldwide, via the Internet, using your home or officecomputer."
>
> [MC Journal: The Journal of Academic Media Librarianship, v2 no.1,Winter 1994:63-69.]
> ----------
>
> Apparently their growth was stunted.
>
> Joel

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