Re: New Gopher clients & software
On 10/21/2019 1:05 PM, John Goerzen wrote:
> Hello folks,
>
> Today I stumbled into #gopher on irc.tilde.chat (SSL required, port
> 6697) and learned of a new Gopher client called Bombadillo. Somehow I
> hadn't been aware of it, and checked and saw it hadn't been mentioned
> here.
>
> I was also pointed to
> https://www.circumlunar.space/~solderpunk/clients.html which is a list
> of Gopher clients (both command-line and graphical). Several I had
> never heard of!
>
> There are also a bunch of gophers on "tilde" which is -- uhm, hard to
> describe -- a loose federation of public-access shell servers I guess.
> gopher.tildeverse.org
>
> Thanks tomasino of gopher://gopher.black/ for this info
>
> - John
>
Yeah, you've been kinda not around for a long time John ;)
The tilde's have been around for a few years, beginning with tilde.club
that was itself inspired by the movement of free UNIX shell servers, or
pubnixes, such as SDF or several others at: https://shells.red-pill.eu/
I've got some info on the Public Access UNIX and Vaxen networks here:
gopher://Vger.Cloud:70/pubnix/
The Bombadillo minimalist client that you mentioned, is a new cross
protocol CLI based client for Gopher and Gemini, and is coming along nicely.
My favorite cross-platform, cross-protocol Gopher and Gemini client
would be Elpher, however, since it runs on both UNIX and Windows:
gopher://thelambdalab.xyz:70/projects/elpher/
Elpher has many features that most other gopher clients do not, in any
form. Aside from a good bookmarking facility it does raw rendering of
server data, refreshes on the fly or from cache, includes mouse support
and any combination of mouse and keyboard control.
For a strictly Windows based, Gopher only client, I really find Matt's
"Gopher Browser for Windows" to be the most pleasant with all the bells
and whistles one could want in a portable, small package:
http://www.jaruzel.com/gopher/gopher-client-browser-for-windows -
another nice thing about this client is the sethandler so you can use
your fave web browser and then voila! it opens this client when you
click on a gopher URI.
Doobie is over a decade old now, and not very well known either, but
it's the one standard gui web browser I know of, that is cross-platform
compatible (UNIX/Windows - i.e., Linux/xBSD/OS X) that also has native
Gopher support. There was a new release about a month ago, and is here:
https://github.com/textbrowser/dooble/releases/tag/2019.09.09
I don't really see much mention here of Christophe's Bitreich Kiosk
either, which I think is really kewl. And speaking of portal based
Gopher clients....
There's also two *brand new* portal based Gopher clients - one for
Synchronet and one for Mystic. You can d/l the Mystic Gopher client from
from the files area on my server via Telnet or SSH here:
telnet://Vger.Cloud
ssh://Vger.Cloud
(NOTE: if you're using ssh and don't already have an account login
initially with something like bbs/bbs the first time to get to the
actual BBS system login and that time you can enter 'new' for username
and it will ask you to create a new account)
Once logged in, it's located in the Files section under the fsxNet
group, and Mystic BBS Utils area. The filename to download the gopher
client is xq-mbgopher.zip
For Synchronet, I don't believe it's been hatched out yet, but it's
available to use on the developer's system as he continues to develop it
along with several Vim and Elpher-like keybindings. To take that for a
test drive you can simply login to telnet://bbs.electronicchicken.com
and in the "Main" area simply enter 'g' for 'Go-For'. If you know how to
use Bombadillo or Elpher you'll find it familiar :) Synchronet also has
it's own gopherd service.
There's also a brand new Windows port of Gophernicus out in beta here:
gopher://Vger.Cloud:70/software_repo/gophernicus-windows/
Or via HTTP here: https://aussies.space/~fosslinux/gophernicus.exe
In the Fediverse, Gopher enjoys native support there too, With native
support for Gopher included with Pleroma.
I' ve been so disappointed every time I read someone's blog or site
saying how retro/nostalgic gopher *was*, as if it isn't still relevant
and useful in a very meangingful and contemporary way - which it is.
That type of thinking has started to change - there's been a resurgance
in deployment of Gopher services, and not because it's a kewl old retro
thang either. Because it's relevant and efficient. BBS networks have
enjoyed an even greater reboot and resurgence too, and the two
compliment each other nicely. There's been, as you noted, a lot of new
clients being developed and released too, in order to accommodate the
resurgence in deployment and growth in usage of Gopher too, and at the
same time, as a result of that, much less usage of proxies.
Enjoy :)
--
Bradley D. Thornton
Manager Network Services
http://NorthTech.US
TEL: +1.310.421.8268
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