Gopher+

marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)

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Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 22:14:45 -0800
From: marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)
Message-id: <9302100614.AA05540@wintermute.ncsa.uiuc.edu>
To: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Subject: Gopher+
X-Md4-Signature: f32f2cba49565499ef0d4c4a0cc3edfa

Well, they've gone ahead and done it....

Marc

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 18:18:28 CST
From: gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu (The Gopher Team)
Original-To: gopher-news@boombox.micro.umn.edu
Subject: First release of Gopher+ clients and server
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.gopher
Distribution: comp

Dateline: Minneapolis, MN  9 Feb 1993

The University of Minnesota Internet Gopher Team is pleased to announce
the availability of first beta release of gopher+ clients and server.
Now available for anonymous ftp from boombox.micro.umn.edu are:

   TurboGopher1.6b1       ---  A Gopher+ client for the Macintosh

   available as /pub/gopher/Macintosh-TurboGopher/TurboGopher.1.06b1.hqx

and 

   gopher+1.2beta.tar.Z   ---  A Gopher+ client and server for Unix systems

   available as /pub/gopher/Unix/gopher+1.12.tar.Z

After spending most of January eating turnips we have our first test
release of Gopher+ software.  However, not all features have been
implemented yet, and there is plenty of testing to be done.  You
probably don't want to give this to everyone on your campus.... 
yet :-) 

Please, *Please*, Please send bug reports to
gopher@boombox.micro.umn.edu 

Features currently implemented for TurboGopher
----------------------------------------------

Supports Multiple views of documents.

Fetches item attributes (administrator, modification date etc.)

Supports access to "Admit1" gopher+ servers

   (Admit1 is an extension to Gopher+ that allows secure
    authentication on a per user basis to servers using a ticketing
    scheme)

User selectable helper applications for displaying alternate views and
images. 

Support for JPEG, GIF, PICT, and sundry other image/document formats.

Intelligent Gopher+ error handling.

File retrieval status is displayed in a separate window for each
retrieval.  This makes it easy to terminate file retrievals or obtain
status when several concurrent retrievals are active.

Rudimentary support for ASK queries from the server.

Features currently implemented for the UNIX client
--------------------------------------------------

Intelligent Gopher+ error handling.

Fetches item attributes (administrator, modification date etc.)

Supports Multiple views of documents.

Gripe command allows the user to complain to the specific adminstrator
of a document.

Configurable helper applications for displaying alternate views and
images. 

More than rudimentary support for ASK queries from the server.

Features currently implemented for the UNIX server
--------------------------------------------------

Supports ASK blocks. Allows answers to multiple queries to be
retrieved from a gopher+ client.

Supports multiple views via configurable filename extension mapping. 

Basic Gopher+ error responses.

Item attributes (administrator, abstracts, etc.)

Very little documentation, but a bunch of examples

Replacement code for .cap files.

Gopher+ attribute registry
--------------------------

The Gopher+ attribute is available via gopher on host

Host=boombox.micro.umn.edu 
Port=70
Path=0/gopher/gopher_protocol/Gopher+/Gopher+AttributeRegistry

This is also available via ftp to boombox.micro.umn.edu

Gopher+ example server
----------------------

We are also running an example gopher+ example server.

Connect to gopher.tc.umn.edu and select:

   Information about Gopher
      Gopher+ example server

Note that the machine this points to will be changing soon.  We will
update the link to be current..  (i.e. don't depend on it being on
mudhoney.micro.umn.edu)