Chapter 8: GOPHERS, WAISs AND THE WORLDWIDE WEB

     Even with tools like  Hytelnet  and  archie ,  telnet  and  ftp  can
still be frustrating.  There are all those telnet and ftp addresses to
remember.  Telnet services often have their own unique commands.  And,
oh, those weird directory and file names!
     But now that the Net has become a rich repository of information,
people are looking at ways to make it far easier to find all that data.
Gophers and Wide-Area Information Servers (WAISs) are two programs that
could ultimately make the Internet as easy to navigate as commercial
networks like CompuServe or Prodigy.

    Gopher                          
    Wide-Area Information Servers   
    World-Wide Web                  
    Clients (SSLP, PPP)             

     Both GOPHER and WAIS essentially take a request for information and
then scan the Net for it, so you don't have to.  Both also work through
menus -- instead of typing in some long sequence of characters, you just
move a cursor to your choice and hit enter.  Newer gophers even let you
select files and programs from ftp sites this way.


FYI:

     The Usenet newsgroups comp.infosystems.gopher and
comp.infosystems.wais are places to go for technical discussions about
gophers and WAISs respectively.