The Internet is the backbone of the Information Super Highway. It is a huge international network of computer systems and communication links that allow users all over the world to exchange information. Internet mail and ftp have been covered elsewhere in this document. Gopher is an information service protocol and interface that allows sites all over the world to provide information to users without knowledge of complex or arcane internet addressing schemes. It was created by the University of Minnesota, hence its name gopher.
Gopher is set up by site administrators and provides a text based highearical structure.
Local servers are linked to wide area services so users can access information from gopher servers anywhere on the planet. Because it is text based and heirarchical, it is very fast means to provide access to commonly requested information. The local system uses its own paging protocol to allow text searches from downloaded information. Data is transmitted from the remote host so there is relatively low network loading. The main drawbacks are that all information must be text only, and it does require local administration.