Term of the Moment
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Definition: Gopher
(1) For Google's large language model, see Gopher AI.
(2) An electric scooter for people with disabilities that is often found in department stores and supermarkets. Also called "mobility scooters" and operating like an electric wheelchair, Sears, Roebuck and Co. provided the first of its kind in 1954.
(3) A protocol for searching file names and resources on the Internet that presents hierarchical menus to the user. As users select options, they are moved to different Gopher servers. Where links have been established, Usenet news and other information can be read directly from Gopher.
Thousand of Servers in its Heyday
Introduced in 1991 at the University of Minnesota, there were eventually more than 7,000 Gopher servers on the Internet. As Web content increased throughout the 1990s, Gopher popularity declined and only a handful of servers remain today. Gopher client support was added to Web browsers for a while but later mostly abandoned. See Veronica, Archie, Jughead, WAIS and World Wide Web.
The Style When Gopher Reigned
(2) An electric scooter for people with disabilities that is often found in department stores and supermarkets. Also called "mobility scooters" and operating like an electric wheelchair, Sears, Roebuck and Co. provided the first of its kind in 1954.
(3) A protocol for searching file names and resources on the Internet that presents hierarchical menus to the user. As users select options, they are moved to different Gopher servers. Where links have been established, Usenet news and other information can be read directly from Gopher.
Thousand of Servers in its Heyday
Introduced in 1991 at the University of Minnesota, there were eventually more than 7,000 Gopher servers on the Internet. As Web content increased throughout the 1990s, Gopher popularity declined and only a handful of servers remain today. Gopher client support was added to Web browsers for a while but later mostly abandoned. See Veronica, Archie, Jughead, WAIS and World Wide Web.
When introduced in 1993, the Mosaic Web browser came equipped with a list of Gopher and FTP servers. Today, this interface seems archaic. See Mosaic. (Image courtesy of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.)