GOPHER(1)

👑 GOPHER(1) — the manual, but make it make sense 💅

okay bestie, welcome to gopher — aka the little client that could, aka your tunnel into the whole distributed document-delivery situation. This page is the General Commands Manual entry for gopher (that's the GOPHER(1) you see stamped on the top and bottom of the boring version). Let's get into it. 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

gopher — connect to a gopher document server. that's it. that's the whole job. 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

gopher [-sSbDr] [-t title] [-p path] [-T type] [-i search term]
[hostnameorurl] [port]

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

The gopher client is how you talk to gopher servers. The second you've started it up, help on using it is literally right there — just press the ? key. no cap. 🫶

The Internet Gopher is a distributed document delivery service. What that means in group-chat terms: even a total neophyte user can get at all kinds of data living on a bunch of different hosts, and it all feels seamless. How? By serving you a hierarchical arrangement of documents and using a good old client-server communications model. The Internet Gopher Server takes simple queries and responds by sending the client a document. slay. ✨

The [hostname] of a gopher server can be specified at startup. Omit it and you just get the default server for your site — no biggie. You can also drop a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) in for this argument. 🌈

The [Port_number] of the server host can be specified at startup too. Omit it and you'll use the default port specified at your site. The more-or-less standard and accepted Gopher port number on the Internet is 70. iconic.

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -b — starts the client on the bookmark page. straight to your faves. 💖

The next few options are for the more advanced girlies who want to start somewhere other than the default, or who are setting up special aliases or shell scripts to point the gopher client at separate places. 👑

• -p path — specify a specific selector string to send to the gopher server on startup.
• -T type — let the client know what type of object the -p option is pointing at.
• -i search term — tell the client what to search for in the object defined by the -p and -T 7 options.
• -t title — set the title of the initial screen for the gopher client.

The last few options aren't really of interest to regular users, but they're provided for system administrators who want to provide a secure client, or who need to debug a client. sysadmin main character energy, honestly. 🛠️

• -s or -S — "secure mode", which means you can't save or print the files that you browse. -s is for users without an account, while -S assumes the user has an account on this machine. One security feature is forced on — regardless of the state of these options — if the name of the user's shell ends in rsh: the 'O' (options) command is disabled, so the user cannot select a shell as an application.
• -r — tells the client that its user is remote.
• -D — turns on the copious debugging output. it's giving verbose. 💀

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🧚 In-Session Options 🧚

Press return or the right arrow key on the mini keypad to view a document or enter a directory.

Press Control/W, Control/R, or Control/L to repaint your menu at any time. glow-up on demand. ✨

At any time, you may press ? to see a help file of commands available. iykyk. 🫶

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📚 BOOKMARKS 📚

Bookmarks let users create their own personalized menus from the ones available across the variety of Gopher servers out there worldwide. The following list of keystrokes aids in developing and maintaining the bookmarks:

• a — Add current item to the bookmark list.
• A — Add current directory/search to bookmark list.
• v — View bookmark list.
• d — Delete a bookmark/directory entry.

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🦋 MOVING AROUND 🦋

Use the arrow keys to move around. 🎯

• Up, k — Move to previous line.
• Down, j — Move to next line.
• Right, Return — "Enter"/Display current item.
• Left, u — "Exit" current item/Go up a level.
• >, +, Pgdwn, space — View next page.
• <, -, Pgup, b — View previous page.
• 0-9 — Go to a specific line.
• m — Go back to the main menu.

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💜 OTHER COMMANDS 💜

• s — Save current item to a file.
• S — Save current list of items to a file.
• D — Download a file.
• q — Quit with prompt.
• Q — Quit unconditionally (also Control/Z).
• r — goto root menu of current item.
• R — goto root menu of current menu.
• = — Display Technical information about current item.
• ^ — Display technical information about current directory.
• o — Open a new gopher server.
• w — Open a new gopher server or item by URL.
• O — Change options.
• f — Connect to an anonymous FTP host.
• / — Search for an item in the menu.
• g — "Gripe" via email to administrator of current item.
• n — Find next search item.
• $, ! — Spawn to subprocess (use "logout" to return to session).
• Ctrl-T — Show host's local date and time.

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👑 GOPHER OBJECTS 👑

Menu entries ending with "/" are directories. Additional characteristics for files (such as binary, sound, image, and others) are identified within angle brackets.

• (none) → type 0 — file
• / → type 1 — directory
• <) → type s — sound file
• <Picture> → type I,g — image file
• <Movie> → type ; — movie file
• <HQX> → type 4 — BinHexed Macintosh file
• <Bin> → type 9 — binary file
• <PC Bin> → type 5 — DOS binary file
• <CSO> → type 2 — CSO (ph/qi) phone-book server
• <TEL> → type 8 — telnet connection
• <3270> → type T — telnet connection (IBM 3270 emulation)
• <MIME> → type M — Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions file
• <HTML> → type h — HyperText Markup Language file
• <?> → type 7 — index-search item
• <??> → type (none) — ASK form

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🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

gopher gopher.tc.umn.edu

Connect to the gopher server running on the computer gopher.tc.umn.edu.

gopher gopher.tc.umn.edu

gopher -p "1/Information About Gopher" gopher.tc.umn.edu 70

Connect to the gopher server running on port 70 of the computer gopher.tc.umn.edu and start at the menu retrieved with the selector string 1/Information About Gopher.

gopher -p "1/Information About Gopher" gopher.tc.umn.edu 70

gopher -p 7/indexes/Gopher-index/index -T 7 -i FAQ mudhoney.micro.umn.edu

Connect to the gopher server running on the computer mudhoney.micro.umn.edu and start at the menu of items matching the string FAQ in the index specified by the selector string 7/indexes/Gopher-index/index.

gopher -p 7/indexes/Gopher-index/index -T 7 -i FAQ
mudhoney.micro.umn.edu

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🌈 CONFIGURATION FILE FORMAT 🌈

The client gets configuration data from the system gopher.rc file and the user's .gopherrc files. The options in these files may be set by using the O key in the client.

See the manual page for gopherrc for more information about these options. 📖

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⭐ ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES ⭐

The client also checks for environment variables for its configuration information. The following variables can be used:

• GOPHER_TELNET — the program used to connect to telnet services.
• GOPHER_TN3270 — the program used to connect to TN3270 services.
• GOPHER_HTML — the program used to read HyperText Markup Language documents.
• GOPHER_PRINTER — the program used to print from a pipe.

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🍓 FILES 🍓

• $HOME/.gopherrc — user bookmarks and configuration information.
• /usr/local/lib/gopher.rc — system default configuration information (default location — may be somewhere else on your system).
• /usr/local/lib/gopher.hlp — client help file displayed by the '?' command (default location — may be somewhere else on your system).

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🎀 COPYRIGHT 🎀

The Internet Gopher(tm) software and documentation is copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 by the University of Minnesota. Gopher has limitations on its use and comes without a warranty. Please refer to the file 'Copyright' included in the distribution.

bestie, fr fr: limitations on use, no warranty. read the 'Copyright' file, it's not a vibe, it's a rule. 💅

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okay that's the whole thing!! and for the lil' sign-off at the bottom, the original page just stamps GOPHER(1) again — same as the top — so consider this your cute lil' bow on the package: gopher(1), General Commands Manual, GOPHER(1). go press ? and live your best gopher life, bestie 🫶💖✨