WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: What was Gopher? 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.479 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.880 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.520 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:24.279 are you? It is time for a tech Stuff classics episode. 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.639 This episode is called What Was Gopher? And it originally 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:35.640 published on April nineteenth, twenty seventeen. Hope you enjoy and 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:39.600 you guys have been crushing at sending tons of suggestions 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:41.560 my way, and I just want to say I really 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.479 appreciate it. So remember, if you have a suggestion for 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:46.920 a topic I should cover, send me the message the 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:51.080 emails text stuff at hellstuffworks dot com. But this week's 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:54.600 listener mail episode comes to us from Ryan, who says, 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.480 please do an episode about the Gopher protocol, such a 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.920 different approach to utilize the Internet that no one knows today. 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.240 And so today we're gonna walk back in Internet history 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.920 and learn all about the Gopher protocol. But first it 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:14.520 kind of benefits us to remember what exactly the Internet is. 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.800 And trust me, this is important in the grand scheme 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.640 of things. But I'll be nice and high level and 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:22.640 brief about it, so when you get down to it, 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:25.839 the Internet is essentially just a bunch of computing devices 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.280 that are all connected to each other, and that's it. Really. 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:31.240 There's a lot of infrastructure there that allows this to happen, 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.200 but ultimately it's a bunch of computers that are talking 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.119 to each other. It's a network of networks using various 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.920 types of connections and protocols to send and receive communications. 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.360 But when you just break it down to its simplest 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:49.320 of terms, you're really talking about a bunch of interconnected machines. Now, 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:54.840 broadly speaking, we can classify most of these machines as 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:59.240 either servers or clients. Now there are other machines as well, 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.920 like route and switches and stuff, but I'm mostly talking 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.760 about the devices that are directly communicating with each other 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:10.160 rather than the ones that facilitate that communication. So as 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:12.800 a server, well, it does exactly what it sounds like. 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:18.760 It does. It serves information. Clients request information. So your 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.679 smartphone or your computer or your tablet that you use 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.720 to serf the Internet or read email or whatever it 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:27.840 is you do online, that is a client. The servers 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:31.480 are the machines that contain all the information you're looking 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:35.040 at and serve it up to you. And the Internet 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.280 is older than the World Wide Web. A lot of people, 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.040 probably not as many today as were around for like 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.680 the late nineties, but a lot of people would equate 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.200 the World Wide Web with the Internet, like the two 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:50.040 are synonymous, and that's not really true. The Web is 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.960 really just a layer on top of the Internet. It's 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:55.960 an interface that makes it easy to access and interact 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.800 with information, but it's just one part of the Internet. 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.600 Before it came along, people were facing a bit of 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:08.200 a challenge. So imagine you've got this network of networks. 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:13.800 Information is on thousands of servers around the world. You 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.000 want to get access to some specific information, like a 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:22.160 very particular file. There's one file that you want to get, 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:26.200 But how do you track down that file? How do 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:30.320 you know which computer out there in this vast network 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.160 of networks. How do you know which one actually holds 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:37.240 the file you want. You can't just scream out, hey, 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:39.720 I need this one text file. You've got to know 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.280 where it is in order to retrieve it. So the 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.640 way this would work normally is that you'd send a 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:49.720 message from your computer across the network to the specific 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:54.880 server in question. So ideally you would know what computer 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:59.240 hosts your file, and you would use some method of 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:03.320 connecting to that server. Maybe you're using telnet, maybe you're 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:07.680 using FTP file Transfer protocol, but you're using something to 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.600 send a message to that server and then return the 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.600 server responds to you, and then you request access to 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.000 that file. It's really just that the message you send 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.320 is just a request for information stored on that server. 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:25.120 And if you have access authorized access to that information. 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.120 In other words, if it's not protected by like a 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.400 password or something that you don't have, the server would 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:34.680 send that information back across the internet to you. But 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:38.039 what happens if you don't know which computer holds the 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.560 information you want, how do you get access to it? 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:44.120 Back in the old days, this would be kind of 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:48.080 like picking up a telephone to call somebody. Let's say 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:50.760 you're trying to call me, only you don't have my 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:52.919 phone number. I never gave it to you. I'm not 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:55.560 listed anywhere, so how do you call me? There are 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:59.120 millions of phone numbers out there. If you knew my 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.240 phone number, everything would be just fine because you could 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.440 just dial it directly. But since you don't know my 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.839 number and there's no directory to consult, you're faced with 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:09.040 a nearly impossible task. What do you do, just start 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.520 randomly hitting buttons until the right person picks up. Well, 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:16.279 that was the problem facing the Internet. It arose because 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.680 the network became more complicated. Just as in the old days, 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.200 you might have very few telephones in a single town. 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.200 Like I'm talking the real old days. When telephones first 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.719 became popular, you didn't need to worry about phone numbers. 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.880 Maybe three people in town had a phone. These days 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:34.040 you got to worry about it because millions of people 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.160 have phones. Well, same thing was true with the network 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.920 of networks. As more computers came online, as more systems 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.520 joined the Internet, it became more difficult to track very 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:48.760 specific stuff down. So before the Internet, there was a 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:54.080 sort of a precursor, not really the Internet. Before there 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.600 was an Internet, but it was a system of networked 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:02.120 computers called ARPA NEET now the arpenet. That was a 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:04.960 project from the Department of Defense in the United States 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:10.840 and was something that required a bunch of computer scientists 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:16.240 to sit down and work out protocols. It was essentially 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:20.279 a big but relatively simple network of computers. Now I 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:23.680 say simple because if you look at the Internet by 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.760 comparison as a network of networks. It is far more 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:32.039 complex than what Arpenet was, but I am not casting 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:37.359 aspersions on arpenet. It was still incredibly sophisticated, particularly for 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:42.280 its time. It allowed people working on different computers that 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:46.880 used different operating systems, different languages, the ability to communicate 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:51.680 with each other. And that's phenomenal because usually, you know, 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:53.880 these are like computers that if you were to connect 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:55.880 directly to one another, they would not be able to 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.800 communicate with each other. They were fundamentally different. So they 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.520 designers of the ARPINET had to figure out a set 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.960 of rules that all these different types of computers could 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:10.440 follow in order to exchange information with one another. So 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.840 that required a lot of work to create these protocols 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.600 or sets of rules to facilitate communication. And I've talked 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.720 about arpinet before. If you want to hear a lot 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.640 more about it, you can track down the classic episode. 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.800 It originally published in twenty twelve. It was titled Happy 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:31.280 Fathers of the Internet Day and then Chris Palette and 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:35.320 I talked a lot about the people who designed the 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:39.560 various protocols that allow Internet communication to happen. Well, anyway, 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.440 two of the protocols in question during the days of 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:48.720 ARPINET were the Transmission Control Protocol or TCP, developed in 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:53.040 nineteen seventy five, and the Internet Protocol or IP in 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.760 nineteen seventy eight. These are almost always grouped together whenever 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:01.120 anyone talks about Internet protocols, they'll say TCPIP, But they 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:05.480 are technically two different sets of rules that together end 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:10.200 up guiding the computers on how to communicate across this 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.760 network of networks. These are the rules that gave arpnet 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:18.520 that ability to create global communication across various different computers. 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:23.160 The two protocols were officially adopted by ARPINET in nineteen 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.480 eighty three, so while they were developed in the seventies, 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:30.440 it wasn't officially adopted until nineteen eighty three. Now, they 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:34.400 were being used before that, but you know, ARPINET was 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:39.520 a government thing, and just like you would suspect, it 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:43.400 moves super fast because it's government. Well, the following year 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.120 nineteen eighty four, a lot of things happen. We got 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:52.040 that really killer Apple Mac commercial that was like the 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.560 Orwellian nineteen eighty four that was phenomenal. But also Sun 0:08:55.760 --> 0:09:01.760 Microsystems unveiled a system called the Network Filing System or 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:05.920 NFS that was sort of like a file directory and 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:11.640 storage system for networked computers running on a heterogeneous Unix environment. 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.760 So you had to have a bunch of computers running 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:19.280 the same Unix implementation essentially, or same version I guess 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.040 I should say not implementation, but the same version of 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.520 Unix across all these different machines. And it was kind 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.440 of like your basic file management system you'd have on 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.319 a personal computer. So if you've ever used a computer 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.679 that had a variation of this, like Windows File Explorer 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:40.720 is a good example. You typically have a hierarchy of files. 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.400 You'll have like a top level selection of files. If 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.080 you go into one of those, you might see folders, 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:50.839 like sub folders underneath that main heading. Go into that one, 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.360 you'll see more sub folders, maybe some files, that kind 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.360 of stuff. Well, it was essentially that, but for an 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.760 entire network of computers. So you could share information between 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:04.080 diferent computers on the system by saving files to this 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:08.120 network drive, something that's very familiar to most of us today, 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:12.720 but back then was really new. And then obviously you 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:17.120 could retrieve files from the appropriate directory on that same system. 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.000 Also in nineteen eighty four, a team over at Carnegie 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:27.000 Mellon University released the Andrew File System or AFS. Now. Originally, 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.920 the AFS provided Carnegie Mellon students a campus wide file 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:35.280 directory system, and later on a company called Transarc sort 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:39.920 of spun off and turned this into a commercial product. Now, 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:44.360 these file systems allowed users to access files on other computers, 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:49.040 but they also came with a really steep learning curve. 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:53.520 If you weren't particularly computer savvy, it was really challenging 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.880 to navigate through these file directories. It would be kind 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.640 of like taking someone to a computer and it has 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.160 all line commands and the person had never really worked 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.040 with a line command interface. They'd only worked with graphics 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:08.440 by line command. I mean, you have to type in 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.080 the command and file names you want in order to 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.600 access stuff. Well, if that's what you've been doing the 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:17.959 whole time, it's not so bad. You start to pick 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.720 up on it. Even as new systems are brought on, 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:23.800 you can kind of adapt to it pretty quickly because 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.600 you already have that basic level of knowledge. But for 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.360 someone brand new to computers, it was really intimidating. It 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:34.320 felt like you needed to have a lexicon of different 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:36.840 commands at your disposal all the time, and a lot 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.200 of people would have to use cheat sheets and take 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.760 a look at those constantly so that they could figure 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:45.240 out just how to navigate a computer. It wasn't very 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.160 user friendly, and it was really hard to find what 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.840 you were looking for if you didn't already know where 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:55.079 to start from the beginning. The trick with filing systems 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:59.080 is that you have to understand the organizational strategy. So 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.280 not only do you have to understand the language to 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.440 navigate the system, you also have to understand the person 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.359 who set it up in the first place. So there's 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.320 a bit of machine savvy you have to have, but 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:13.679 there's also how well do I know the person who 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:16.200 set up this filing system and how does that person's 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.160 brain work, Because maybe they'll set things up in a 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.400 different way then I would set it up, and if 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:24.840 I were to try and navigate using my common sense, 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.600 I might find it frustrating. So here's an example of 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.199 what I mean. Back in the day, I used to 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.880 organize all of my DVDs by genre and then by 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.600 alphabetical order by title. So I had all my action 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:40.720 films in one place, I had all my horror movies 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.839 in another place, all my Tim Curry movies were together 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:46.040 all that kind of thing. You know, Tim Curry is 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.360 a genre unto himself National Treasure. But if you didn't 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.680 know that I did that, and you didn't know where 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.120 one section began or ended, you could have trouble finding 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.080 a specific title. Maybe you would have had a totally 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.920 different approach. You would have organized everything alphabetically from the start, 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.560 so it didn't matter what genre is, and you would know, 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.120 all right, well, the title i'm looking for starts with 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:09.520 a D, so I need to find the d's and 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:11.920 it's going to be there. Or maybe you would even 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:16.360 have a more crazy organizational strategy, maybe you would organize 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:21.320 everything chronologically by release date, which would confound everyone but 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:24.760 the geekiest of film buffs. The point is that these 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:28.400 file systems back in the day, with these network drives, 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.760 they weren't always intuitive. Even if you weren't immediately put 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.280 off by the interface, you might still not be able 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:38.280 to find what you're looking for. Now. Later still came 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:43.520 Alan Mtaje's Archie tool, and he was a University of 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:47.760 Montreal employee student. You know, he had gone from one 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.680 to the other really when he invented this tool to 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.880 search for files on the Internet that would be transferred 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:58.600 via FTP file Transfer Protocol. So instead of requiring the 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.120 user to know a direct path, you just had to 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:06.040 know the name of the file, how was the file named. Now, 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.880 that still isn't ideal, because I'm sure you've encountered files 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:12.760 that had weird or non intuitive names that may have 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.880 had nothing to do with what the file actually was about. 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.800 So you had to know precisely how the file was 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:21.720 named or else it really didn't do you any good. 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:24.280 But at least it didn't require you to also know 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.280 the full path name of where a file was, and 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:33.120 it allowed you to actually do a search across the Internet. Now, 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.680 once the Web came along, and I'll talk a lot 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:38.080 more about the World Wide Web later on in this episode, 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.960 and once programmers began building search engines, this problem became 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:47.000 less difficult. Right. Search engines started to make things much 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.600 easier for people. The web made navigation more intuitive. It 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.160 made it more accessible to people who weren't experienced with 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:57.320 computers or had inside knowledge of directory organization. But in 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:01.440 those in between times before the web up, but after 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:07.680 the Internet came online, that's when Gopher emerged. Now, there 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:12.600 were several developers behind Gopher. Really six people in total, 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.800 and one of the more important ones I shouldn't even 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.200 say it that way. One of the leads, I should say, 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:21.280 because all six were important. One of the leads was 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:25.480 Mark McHale, and Mkale attended the University of Minnesota. Actually 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.080 they were all part of the University of Minnesota, but 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:30.880 he had attended as a student, earning a bachelor's degree 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.400 in chemistry in nineteen seventy nine. But while he earned 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:36.440 his degree in chemistry, he would actually go on to 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:41.280 join the campus microcomputer Center as a programmer, and by 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:43.600 the late nineteen eighties he was leading a team of 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:47.800 programmers and together they built an email client called pop mail, 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.360 first for the Macintosh computer and then later on for 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:56.280 the PC platform. The POP in pop mail stands for 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.640 post Office Protocol. So the way worked was that you 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:02.440 had a server that would kind of act like a 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:07.240 virtual post office. You would whenever you were checking email 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.440 or sending email, it would involve a virtual visit to 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:14.080 this post office. You could drop off and receive mail there. 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.400 So if you wanted to send a message through your 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:21.360 popmail client, the client, as in your computer, the workstation 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:24.680 you are using, would relay the message through the post 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:29.280 office server, which would then direct the message onto your destination. 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:34.720 When retreating messages, you would actually be going to this 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:39.120 popmail server to pull the emails off of it in 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.960 order to read them. So they were the ones who 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:45.040 developed this, and it was a very popular type of 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:48.960 way of getting a hold of email. The next big 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:52.720 project that this team tackled was creating an interface for 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:57.360 navigating the university's local network. So the question was, how 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.960 can we find whatever we're looking for? How do we 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.080 organize all this information we have in a way that 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.520 makes sense because they could see that the Internet was 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.320 creating this incredible opportunity to share information, but it was 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:15.560 getting increasingly difficult to find stuff and to organize stuff 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.520 properly because there were more and more computers coming onto 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:23.000 the system and it just made things even more complicated. 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:29.840 So together Mikhail Bob Alberti, Farad Anklesaria, Paul Linda, and 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.840 Daniel Tory began to work to develop a solution, and 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:38.119 as it turned out, their solution had applications far beyond 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.040 the campus they worked on. In fact, it would turn 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:45.239 out their solution had applications outside of the campus they 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:49.840 worked on before it actually was implemented by the campus itself. 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:54.040 It would work across the Internet in general. Now I'm 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:57.199 going to jump into what they did in just a second, 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.240 but before I do that, let's take a quick break 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:11.880 to thank our sponsor. So the team got to work 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:14.919 in nineteen ninety one. They knew that they wanted a 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:18.720 system that could organize information in an intuitive way, giving 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.800 users an opportunity to navigate the information they needed quickly. 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.159 They wanted it to be a client server system. This 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:30.639 was really important to them. What they perhaps the biggest 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.280 decision they made, the most important one to them, was 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:41.200 to not go a centralized mainframe organizational strategy. They wanted 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.919 to get away from mainframe computers. They saw that the 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:48.800 future was in desktops. But desktop machines, especially in ninety one, 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:56.719 were slow, they had relatively limited capabilities, so whatever system 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:03.560 they created had to be optimized for these less powerful machines. 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.440 They also wanted to make this system scalable, with options 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.520 to have various departments register servers with a top level server. 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.960 So in other words, you could have different departments having 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.920 their own networks, but have them linked to the main 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:22.440 network so that you can navigate throughout all of these 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:24.520 different systems, and that way, if you connected to that 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.400 top level server, you could navigate to any lower department 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:31.320 through a master menu. They also wanted the tool to 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:33.520 be efficient and lightweight, meaning they didn't want it to 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:37.639 tax those normal PCs and workstations. They didn't want a 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.840 tool that would move at a snail's pace, and that 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.600 was one of the reasons that they really focused on 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:50.239 text based communications, because it doesn't require a whole lot 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.240 of data to send text, and it meant that it 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:58.000 could be relatively fast and informative. They also decided that 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:02.159 the server would not retain states. Now that means that 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:04.040 the server wouldn't need to keep a record of all 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.760 the different information requests from multiple clients. Once a connection closed, 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.199 the state was white, and it would close the connection 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.760 after every transaction. Essentially, so together they worked on this 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:19.360 tool and they decided to call it Gopher. The name, 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:22.240 by the way, serves many purposes. For one, the mascot 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:25.520 of the University of Minnesota is the Golden Gopher, Minnesota 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:31.280 is the Gopher state. Also, the idea of a metaphorical 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.600 gopher appealed to them. Gopher's tunnel and in a way, 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:40.760 the Gopher protocol kind of tunnels through networks. They also 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.399 started to refer to the networks that were using Gopher 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:48.760 as Gopher space. And finally, gophers also the term for 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.200 someone who runs errands and fetches things because the gopher 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:59.879 will gopher like coffee or you know, you can go 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.439 for snacks, that kind of stuff. The Classic Muppet Show 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:08.680 series had Scooter who was a gopher. There were a 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:11.439 lot of jokes about that about how Scooter was a 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:17.119 gopher by job, but he wasn't a gopher by critter, 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:22.000 like he was not the actual animal gopher. Anyway, here's 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:26.440 the weird thing. So the team knew they were onto 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:29.920 something when they designed Gopher, but it didn't get a 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.560 lot of traction right out of the gate despite its utility, 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:36.640 because the University of Minnesota they just didn't see how 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:39.080 this would be useful. They didn't see the value in it, 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:42.480 so they didn't really put any support behind it, and 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.359 they didn't implement it at all. So the team decided 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:48.399 to sidestep all that red tape, and one of the 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:53.199 team members uploaded the software to an FTP server and 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.520 then posted a message on an Internet mailing list saying, hey, guys, 0:21:56.520 --> 0:21:59.399 we developed this kind of cool tool. We think it 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:01.960 is a great way to organize information on networks and 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:05.159 allow people to find stuff. Give it a try. So 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:08.439 people began to download it and put to use, and 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:12.040 not long after that it started to take off. A 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.959 lot of places were using it and they decided that 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.159 it made a whole lot of sense, and eventually the 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:21.640 University of Minnesota administration relented and implemented Gopher as well 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:25.480 on their campus. Now let's go ahead and talk about 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:28.879 Gopher implementations and what it was actually like. So there 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.360 were two main ways you could interact with Gopher. One 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:35.480 of them was to install software on your computer. And 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:39.879 this is looking at interacting with Gopher as a user 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:43.280 as opposed to as an administrator. So you want to 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:45.840 use Gopher, well, one thing you could do is install 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:48.800 software on your computer, and this was a client side 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:52.520 Gopher application, which really is not that different from a 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:57.800 web browser like Firefox or Chrome or Safari. It's essentially 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:00.840 a similar thing. It's a program that runs on your 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:04.960 computer that acts as the interface for this protocol. Those 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:07.840 are all client side applications, just like the Gopher one was. 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:10.119 But you didn't have to do that. What you could 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:15.960 do instead is use a Telnet application. Telnet was another 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:20.000 old protocol that's still used in some places. Tel Net 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:24.920 would allow you to virtually log in to another terminal, 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:28.960 and you just had to have the correct address and 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:31.520 port number and everything in order to tell Net into 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:35.600 that room. So you could use Telnet to log onto 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:38.919 a remote server and use the server side Gopher client 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:42.440 to access directories. And in that case, all the work 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:45.439 is being done by the server and you don't have 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:49.360 to actually have a client based application on your side. 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:53.320 The style of the Gopher client really dependent upon its implementation. 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:57.359 The team wanted to make sure that it was customizable, 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:01.800 but it was always simple. There's always text based. It 0:24:01.840 --> 0:24:05.480 could be extremely simple where all you have are text 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:09.800 options under a menu, or it could have some very 0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:15.080 primitive kind of graphic user interface elements in it. Graphic 0:24:15.119 --> 0:24:22.040 user interface also known as GUY but less what's the 0:24:22.119 --> 0:24:27.200 right word, less impressive or extensive as what you would 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:29.840 find in the World Wide Web later. And there were 0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:32.560 two worlds in the Gopher verse, the world the client 0:24:32.720 --> 0:24:37.000 could see and the world the server worked with. So 0:24:37.040 --> 0:24:41.320 on the server side, every item within a Gopher directory 0:24:41.960 --> 0:24:45.199 would have certain elements to it, and that included a 0:24:45.240 --> 0:24:49.600 client visible name, a selector which was usually something that 0:24:50.600 --> 0:24:56.000 used the path name that would connect the server for 0:24:56.119 --> 0:25:00.200 location purposes. Then there would be a host name which 0:25:00.200 --> 0:25:04.600