WELCOME To The EPA Region IV Public Access Gopher Prepared by: John Nemeth (Contractor) Staffed by Garcia Consulting Inc. November 24, 1995 ------- USING THE EPA GOPHER The Internet Gopher system was first developed by the University of Minnesota. Minnesota's sports teams are known as the Golden Gophers, hence the name Gopher. A Gopher is simply a series of menus. You select a topic then keep selecting until you find the information you need. You can also perform simple text searches or a veronica (wry tasy rodcnt-orienled net-wide Index of computerized archives) search. Through Gopher you can access libraries and information sources throughout the world. With a few keystrokes you can travel from Atlanta to the University of Michigan, out to Great Britain, Australia, Japan or almost anywhere else in the world. There are two EPA Gophers available. One restricts your usage only to EPA information. This is the one you can access easily on the LAN by pressing F4 F8 Fl. The other is the EPA's Restricted Gopher. (Although it's called "Restricted", it's actually unrestricted! Go Figure!) To access this Gopher you will have to Telnet. Telnetting is simply entering the computer address for a database in order to connect, basically like making a telephone call. To access this press F4 F8 F2, when you get to the prompt TCP/IP server: enter 0EXACTLY) c wicdgserv.wic.epa.gov Then press enter Wait a second until you get a menu with five options, select option #2 (Restricted Gopher) and you're all set! ------- BASIC GOPHER COMMANDS For the most part, you'll only need your up/down arrow keys and enter to navigate in Gopher. Use these to select the menu you want. Some advanced searching methods are Veronica and your / key. Veronica is available on almost every gopher. On the EPA Gopher it's available under options for other internet gophers (Look around, you'll find it!). You use your / key to search for text on the screen or on a document you're currently reading. Just press the / and a search prompt will come up, enter in your keyword(s) and press enter, it will find the word(s) for you. You can also print off text from the Gopher. Whenever you're using the Gopher system, you will have a series of options on the bottom of the screen. To print you use the "D to Download" option. Notice it is a capital D! So when your reading a document and want to print it off, press shift-D, use your arrow keys to select option 5. Text BUT DON'T PRESS ENTER YET!!! Turn on your printer by pressing ALT-L (this turns off & on your printer), now press enter. The text will scroll across your screen, when it's done press ALT-L to turn off your printer and that's it! Downloading is also possible, except you'll need to "clean it up" in WordPerfect. Use "D to Download" (remember, capital D), select option 5. Text BUT DON'T PRESS ENTER YET!!! Now press the Page Down key, here you will get a Procomm menu, select A. ASCII. You'll get a prompt for entering in the filename. If you want to download to your K: drive, enter k:filename. Press enter twice, and wait until downloading is complete. That's it! ------- SOME SITES OF INTEREST The following will all use the EPA's Restricted Gopher as the starting point. Numbers correspond to the menu options. Other Gophers (General) 14. Other Gopher & Information Servers 2 Other Internet Gophers 3. University of Michigan 8. Gophers Weather 14. Other Gopher & Information Servers 2. Other Internet Gophers 15. University of Missouri-St Louis 1!. The World 7. Weather Reports and Maps Government and Environmental Gophers 3. EPA Public Access Gopher 16. Other Environmental Information -or- 17. Other Government Information Veronica 14. Other Gopher and Information Resources ------- USING THE EPA GOPHER The Internet Gopher system was first developed by the University of Minnesota. Minnesota's sports teams are known as the Golden Gophers, hence the name Gopher. A Gopher is simply a series of menus. You select a topic then keep selecting until you find the information you need. You can also perform simple text searches or a veronica (wry tasy rodcnt-orienled net-wide Index of computerized archives) search. Through Gopher you can access libraries and information sources throughout the world. With a few keystrokes you can travel from Atlanta to the University of Michigan, out to Great Britain, Australia, Japan or almost anywhere else in the world. There are two EPA Gophers available. One restricts your usage only to EPA information. This is the one you can access easily on the LAN by pressing F4 F8 Fl. The other is the EPA's Restricted Gopher. (Although it's called "Restricted", it's actually unrestricted! Go Figure!) To access this Gopher you will have to Telnet. Telnetting is simply entering the computer address for a database in order to connect, basically like making a telephone call. To access this press F4 F8 F2, when you get to the prompt TCP/IP server: enter 0EXACTLY) c wicdgserv.wic.epa.gov Then press enter Wait a second until you get a menu with five options, select option #2 (Restricted Gopher) and you're all set! ------- |