Travel by Gopher

Gopher is a great first tool for exploring cyberspace.  If you connect to
the Internet via v.net, you can begin using Gopher by picking "Instant
Gopher" from a menu.  Go ahead, it will take you places.  Using Gopher
is alot like playing one of those old text adventure games, like Zork.
You wander from forest to cavern to castle, and after awhile you think:
"Fascinating . . . but haven't I been here before, except I entered
through a tunnel behind the king's throne . . . ."

Thank goodness you can leave a trail of bread crumbs.  Gopher lets you
mark your location with a bookmark.  Let's suppose you've just spent
half an hour poking through the CIA World Factbook, and you'd like to
come back to it again sometime.  You exit the World Factbook file,
which puts you back in the Gopher menu listing "CIA World Factbook
(Search)".  Then you press the letter "a" and a dialog box comes up,
asking if you want to add a bookmark.  Press <Return> and you've got it.

Next time you want to look at the World Factbook, you get into Gopher
and press "v" to view your bookmarks, which come up as a menu list.
Move the cursor to your choice and press <Return>.  Now, when you first
found that World Factbook, maybe you got there by running hither and yon
and around Robin Hood's barn, from menu to menu.  But you won't have to
retrace that tangled path anymore, because you nailed it down with a
bookmark.

After awhile you may well get more bookmarks than you really want
anymore.  Not to worry, just press "v" to view the bookmarks, then put
the cursor on the menu choice to delete and press "d".

TRY SOME OF MY TASTY BOOKMARKS

Your host computer stores your Gopher information, including your choice
of bookmarks in a file called ".gopherrc" in your home directory.  When
you call Gopher, it reads information about your terminal and about your
choice of bookmarks from this file.  The bookmark that you made for the
CIA World Factbook looks like this in the ."gopherrc" file, with the
line "Name=  " supplying the menu listing:

#
Type=7
Name=CIA World Factbook (Search)
Path=waissrc:/WAISes/Everything/world-factbook.src
Host=mudhoney.micro.umn.edu
Port=70

Here's my .gopherrc file, between the rows of asterisks.  Copy any of
the bookmarks that you like into your own .gopherrc file.  I'll explain
how to do that after you look at the file.  So far as I know, all the
lines that begin with "map:" are terminal information -- they may be
different for you than for me, so I doubt you'll want to copy any of
them.  Be sure that your .gopherrc file has a line "bookmarks:".  Then
take any of the blocks of bookmark information that follow that line and
paste them into your .gopherrc file.

****************************************************************************

RCversion: 1.1
map: Text,builtin,lpr %s
map: Text/plain,builtin,lpr %s
map: Audio/basic,|play -v 40 -&,
map: Image,xloadimage -fork %s,lpr %s
map: Terminal/telnet,telnet %s,
map: Terminal/tn3270,tn3270 %s,
map: text/html,- none -,
map: image/gif,|xv,|giftoppm |pnmtops | lpr
map: image/ppm,|xv,|pnmtops | lpr
map: Text/x-dvi,xdvi %s,lpr %s
map: application/postscript,gspreview %s,lpr %s
map: Text/x-troff,nroff %s|more -d,ptroff %s
map: Text/richtext,richtext %s|Less -f -r,lpr %s
SearchBolding: no

bookmarks:
#
Type=1
Name=Library Catalogs from Around the World
Path=1/Libraries
Host=yaleinfo.yale.edu
Port=7000 
#
Type=0
Name=DRA (Library of Congress records)
Path=R0-547-/Libraries/by.place/Americas/US/Missouri/DRA
Host=yaleinfo.yale.edu
Port=7000
#
Type=7
Name=Catalogs Search by Keyword
Path=linkdb yaleinfo.yale.edu:7000:7/indexes/libs
Host=yaleinfo.yale.edu
Port=4320
#
Type=1+
Name=Search Gopher Document Titles (using veronica)
Path=1/explore/veronica
Host=char.vnet.net
Port=70 
#
Type=7
Name=CIA World Factbook (Search)
Path=waissrc:/WAISes/Everything/world-factbook.src
Host=mudhoney.micro.umn.edu
Port=70 
#
Type=1
Name=CIA World Factbook 1991 (Browse)
Path=1/info/Government/Factbook91
Host=info.umd.edu
Port=901
#
Type=1
Name=Subject Tree from Library of Congress (Marvel)
Path=1/global
Host=marvel.loc.gov
Port=70
#
Type=1
Name=Government Docs (US & World)
Path=1/Gov
Host=wiretap.spies.com
Port=70
#
Type=1
Name=Whole Earth 'Lectronic Magazine - The WELL's Gopherspace
Path=
Host=gopher.well.sf.ca.us
Port=70 
#
Type=1
Name=Gopher Jewels
Path=1/Other_Gophers_and_Information_Resources/Gophers_by_Subject/Gopher_Jewels
Host=cwis.usc.edu
Port=70
#
Type=1
Name=Kevin's World, Gopher - Univ of Saskatechwan
Path=
Host=skynet.usask.ca
Port=70
#
Type=1+
Name=Fun Stuff & Multimedia
Path=1/Other_Gophers_and_Information_Resources/Gophers_by_Subject/Gopher_Jewels/Fun_Stuff_Multimedia
Host=cwis.usc.edu.
Port=70
#
Type=1
Name=Local Times Around the World  (Austin Hosp, Melbourne)
Path=1/general/time
Host=gopher.austin.unimelb.edu.au
Port=70
#
Type=1+
Name=General Reference Resources
Path=1/Other_Gophers_and_Information_Resources/Gophers_by_Subject/Gopher_Jewels/General_Reference_Resources
Host=cwis.usc.edu.
Port=70
#
Type=7
Name=Rock n Roll Lyrics for searching
Path=waissrc:/ref.d/indexes.d/lyrics.src
Host=sunsite.unc.edu
Port=70
#
Type=7
Name=The Bible (searchable version via UNC)
Path=waissrc:/ref.d/indexes.d/bible.src
Host=sunsite.unc.edu
Port=70
#
Type=1+
Name=All-Music Guide Pop Catalogue by Artist name
Path=1/pop
Host=allmusic.ferris.edu
Port=70 

************************************************************************
HOW TO MODIFY YOUR .GOPHERRC FILE

Every user has a home directory on the host computer.  Next time you log
onto vnet, don't call menu right away.  Instead use this command to
display the names of all the files in your home directory:

ls -a <Return>

This will show you all the (normally) hidden files that control your
user environment on vnet.  Among these files you will see the file
".gopherrc".  Now follow these steps:

1.  Save a copy of ".gopherrc", just in case, using this command:

cp .gopherrc .originalgopherrc <Return>

Now, if anything goes wrong with your project, you can always restore
your original file from its backup.

2.  Rename ".gopherrc", since MSDOS can't accept files whose name begins
with a dot.

mv .gopherrc gofer.rc <Return>

3.  Download "gofer.rc" with Zmodem (substitute the appropriate command
if you use some other file transfer program).

sz gofer.rc <Return>

4.  Delete "gofer.rc" from your home directory.  After all, it's
identical to ".originalgopherrc" anyway.

rm gofer.rc <Return>

5.  Exit vnet.

exit <Return>

6.  Log off Exec-PC, and go to your download directory to work on
"gofer.rc".

  7.  Using your favorite editor, block move any of my bookmark blocks
you want from this file into your "gofer.rc" file, being sure to put
them someplace after the line "bookmark:".  Be sure your editor is
working in "programming" or "non-document" mode, so you don't introduce
any spurious characters by accident.

8.  Log onto vnet and upload your file "gofer.rc".

9.  Rename the file:

mv gofer.rc .gopherrc <Return>

10.  Call the menu program, get into gopher, try out your new bookmarks.

Have fun.  If you get some really great bookmarks, upload them to
Exec-PC to share with the rest of us.

-- Alfred L. Wallace