___            _                 _____                        _    
  / _ \___  _ __ | |__   ___ _ __  /__   \_   _ _ __  _ __   ___| |___
 / /_\/ _ \| '_ \| '_ \ / _ \ '__|   / /\/ | | | '_ \| '_ \ / _ \ / __|
/ /_\\ (_) | |_) | | | |  __/ |     / /  | |_| | | | | | | |  __/ \__ \
\____/\___/| .__/|_| |_|\___|_|     \/    \__,_|_| |_|_| |_|\___|_|___/
           |_|                                                        

by Mr Toasted


        /@\_,_/@\
       {         }
       ( o ) ( o )
      /          \
    \/     {-}    \/
    -   } _____ {  -
    /\_   |_|_|   /\
      \_____,____/
      /          \


In the early days of the internet, when the World Wide Web and its HTTP protocol
where not the global standard for going online yet, there was a little war for
competing standards going on between computer scientist.

One such alternative to 'the Web' was the Gopher protocol, which was released in
1991. Instead of using the well known 'hyperlinks' of the webpages it uses a
menu-like interface where each page lists an index to other pages or documents.
A page is just a location on a server, so it can also link to pages/indexes on
different networks.

The protocol was particularly suited for text-based computer terminals that
where still used a lot at that time and its use was much more similar to the old-
style BBS like information-systems. This used much less bandwidth than the heavy
http-style webpages. Like http, the amount of sub-links within gopher is
virtually limitless and in its form it represented a kind of underground network
of tunnels between servers.

                                 \ o /
      o o      oo o              {   }                     o
______|_|______||_|_____\/______/~~~~~\_______\/_____\/____|___
~  ~ ` o  ~ `   ~  ~ `  ~   __  \     | ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~
  __--__    `  o  `   .----/  \ ~\     \  `  ~  ~ `   ~ {]   ~
 /      \---. ~ `  ~ /    {    | ~|    |   ~  `   ~  `  `  ~
|        }   \______/   .--\__/~ ` \    \  ~   ~  o  ~   ~ ~
|        /--.          / `  ~   ~  /    /  `   `   ~   ~  ~  ~
 \__  __/  ~ \______   \  ~   ~  `/    /  ~  ~   ~  ~    ~  o
    ''    `  ~ ~  ~ \   \________/    / ~ ` ~ __----__ `  ~  ~
~ ~    ~ `  _--__  ` |               /       /        \ ~  `  ~
 `   ~   ~ /     \--./  _________    \__.---/  ,,      | ~  ~ `
~  ~  ~ ` |       }    / _______ \         {==[..]     |` ~  ~
  `   [}   \_  __/---./.'_/_|_\_'.\______.--\ \''/    /~   ` ~
 ~  ~ ` ~    '' ~  `   \`\  |  /`/ ~  ` ~ ~  \__   __/  ~   ~
~   ~   `  ` ~ ~  ~~ `  `\\ | //' ~  ~   ~~ ` ~ ''' ~  ~ ` ~  `
  o  `   ~ ~  `  ~   ~  ~ `\|/`   ~   ~ o  ` ~ `  {]   ~  ~  `
`  ~ ~  ~  ` ~~  o  ~  ~   ~    ~ ~~  ~  `  ~  ~   ~  `     ~
 ~    `  ~  ~   ~   `   ~   ~   `  ~  ~  ~   `  ~   ~  ~  `   
 

For your convenience I have prepared a conversion of the Shadow Wolf Cyberzine
that you can view by pointing your favorite gopher-client to gopher://mrtoasted.com

On MacOS, Linux and associated operating systems there is the terminal-
based 'Lynx' browser. There is even a port of this program for the Amiga!