GopherVR is an enhancedInternet Gopher client that includes a 3Dvisualization tool for viewing resource collections as 3D scenes. It explored how people outside of formal research laboratories could use spatial metaphors to access information.[1] The 3D view was intended to be similar to 3D games of the time, likeSpectre.[2] The authors were interested in how this spatial representation could address the "lost in hyperspace" feeling that people using conventional Gopher clients sometimes experienced.[1][3]
In 1995,[4] theGopher developers at theUniversity of Minnesota released GopherVR. UsingGopher+ protocol extensions, spatial positions for Gopher resources are specified, and GopherVR clients combine traditional Gopher hierarchy browsing with 3D scene navigation.[5] It was primarily written byMark P. McCahill, Paul Lindner and Neophytos Iacovou. This original version was available forUnix, usingMotif andX11, and theclassic Mac OS; although incomplete, they were offered as partially functionalalpha versions for testing.
Godot was another GopherVR client. It used aZ39.50 interface to libraries, allowing you to navigate the contents of a library in 3D.
According to McCahill, GopherVR's goals included showing the potential of structures that "separate the organization from the content", so "you could display the organizational structure a bunch of different ways", which the Web did not have ways of handling at the time.[6]
At the time GopherVR became available, theWorld Wide Web had recently been growing, and Gopher was already less commonly used.[7]
The software packages for GopherVR were stored on the UMN BoomboxFTP server, and (probably due to a defective backup and restore) virtually all Gopher software on this server over 96k in length had become corrupted, resulting in the loss of all publicly available copies of thesource code until it was rediscovered and made available by Mark McCahill in June 2008.[8]
In December 2009, GopherVR was re-released by Cameron Kaiser in an updated form forMac OS X,Linux and other platforms,[9] but is still considered incomplete.
we can make the user experience similar to some of the better arcade style games (like Spectre)
