The Post-Modern Net

Daily musings on the evolution of tech, web, and other things

Gopher Land and Gemini City

September 02, 2019 — mhj

Most people nowadays have never heard of gopher, a once widely used protocol that was before the web. It's very simple compared to the myriad of web technologies that form the modern, sprawling complex we call Web 2.0.

Nevertheless, it's making a revival nowadays. If you like to read and not be bothered by pop-ups and the like, gopher is the perfect place to go.

If you would like to browse the gopherspace, I recommend a text-based browser called Lynx . When you've logged onto Lynx, you can get started in the gopherspace by going to gopher:// . SDF, or Super Dimensional Fortress, is a site that's been around forever. They host shell and gopher services. If you would like an account there, then just go to their site.

Once you're acquainted with gopher, you could try a new and upcoming protocol called Gemini. Gemini seeks to be "heavier than gopher but lighter than the web.". There are several clients about, but I recommend the AV-98 client. It uses python, so it's simple to start-up.

That's all for today, we'll explore more of these places later!


Tags: gemini, gopher