The Lynx interface to Gopher presents Gopher files as Lynx hypertext documents. For example, users can select a file from a Gopher directory by using the usual interactive arrow key sequences to highlight the desired file. There were several approaches to this database over the years. For example, we developed telnet, rlogin, and tn3270 hyperlinks to get to it, and we added the ability to act as a display server for screen-oriented text sent by a process running on another system. This is basically th X Windows of the text world.
Lynx employs two standard approaches to remote program execution.
Each server listens on a defined port on a server system until it receives a request to establish a connection from a Lynx client process. If Lynx can determine that the user is using a VT100 display device, the VT100 commands are simply passed on to the user. The user may choose a new date range, or a subset of the event categories supported. Lou had been interested in doing this for some time for a variety of reasons, and came to me for corroboration. He returned a week later, having done the deed, and we began a wild ride on the Web.