CTGE 5912 INTERNET APPLICATIONS AND DISTANCE EDUCATION

FTP, GOPHER and TELNET WORKSHEET

This worksheet will lead you through exploring three more features of the Internet: ftp, telnet and gopher. Enjoy the tour; many people using the Internet today are only using the worldwide web, you are going to see the "inner workings" of 'net with this exercise.

Print out a copy of this sheet so you can fill in your "findings" on it and then follow along with the links. Enjoy!

  • FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. Prior to the worldwide web it was the way that we stored and transfered files across the Internet. Popular use of FTP for these purposes of exchange began to dim in about 1994. Today FTP is primarily used to transfer web documents to a "host" computer; the web documents are created in HTML language and then transported via FTP to the computer they will be available from. For instance if I am making a webpage for this course and want to have it at the Fordham site, I have to first create the webpage in HTML, by hook or by crook, and then send it from my local computer, to the main Fordham computer so you can reach it with the http://www.fordham/gse/kpking/5912c.htm address. Anyway let's take a tour and see what these FTP sites look like!

    Follow the instructions to go to and navigate the following sites. When you click the sites notice what it says in the URL box in your browser program.

    Washington University at St. Louis
    Write out the address in the URL box here:

    How do you know it is a FTP site?

    Go to "index.html", then "Windows 95", then ".message", what does this say it is?





    MIT FTP Site

    What is the URL for this one?

    Go ahead and read the "index" What is this site used for?
  • GOPHER is an extensive menu system that leads you through sights worldwide. Imagine that you are a little gopher-typoe creature tunneling through computer systems around the world and you pretty much get the concept of it all. The name gopher comes from the mascot of University of Minnesota where the "mother menu" of all gophers is stationed. Before the worldwide web had developed into a graphical user interface (GUI), gopher was "the way" to move among the resources of the Internet. Because so many education and government documents were converted toand posted on gopher systems, it is likely that we will have gopher around for awhile until these are all converted. Let's go do some Internet tunneling with gopher now!

    Once again, follow the instructions to go to and navigate the following sites. When you click the sites notice what it says in the URL box in your browser program.

    US Senate Gopher Site
    What is the URL of this site?

    Now, do a fulltext search of all available documents on Civil Rights.
    Take a look at a few documents, then pick one document and browse through it.
    Write a brief description of it here:





    Welcome to Gopherworld!! -(aka Univ, of MN) or Univ. MN 2nd address
    What is the URL of this site?

    Select the following from the menus you see.. "Other gopher and information services"

    "North America" "USA" "Washington D.C."
     List 3 places you visit from here





    Go back to the University of Minnesota or Univ. MN 2nd address

    Now pick any area you would like to visit to a specific location, and list here where you ended up. What school, institution or organization was it?





    Think about the world without the WWW, why do you think gopher was popular?





    Why do you think it is still used today by some people? (Hint: think "access")
  • TELNET is the way to "login" to a computer from another connection. For instance, you might dial into a service provider (AOL, AT&T, Erol's) from home and then TELNET over to Fordham. Here are 2 examples of places you could go to.



    Let's telnet to your Fordham account
    Once you get there use your login and password. If you then type in "MAIL" and "DIR" you will see a list of your email messages. Be glad that we use the browser to read email..phew!!
    Logout by typing, "exit" and then "logout"






    Now, let's "try" to telnet to the Fordham library catalog
    When it says to login, type "library".
    Do a search for books on Distance Education. List 2 here.




    Notice that in most instances you need a login name and password to access sites via TELNET. This is another form of "remote login."

    Why might you use TELNET?



    What is an advantage to using TELNET?
    Congratulations on getting through the assignment! See if you can briefly define the three communications tools now:

    FTP


    GOPHER

    TELNET



    Great job!
    Additional reference materials for the class website at http://www.fordham.edu/gse/kpking/inetref.htm,-- References
    http://www.fordham.edu/gse/kpking/5912.htm-- Syllabus and menu

    Back to Internet Applications and Distance Education Syllabus

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