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> Probably something to do with the first implementation [of the Gopher spec] being written on the back of a pizza box to appease librarians
Chortling as I type, darling.
Yup! Bunch of punk-ass book jockeys!
(WWW) Punk-ass book jockeys on Wikiquote
It’s also fun to look at this another way. Rather than scrawling Gopher ideas in ink on greasy cardboard, mightn’t these librarian-lovers have typed Gopher code into a “pizza box” slab computer?
Also yes! Taking a look at the Gopher RFC, the following jumps out:
A Gopher full-text search server was implemented using several NeXTstations because it was easy to take advantage of the full-text index/search engine built into the NeXT system software.
The first computer NeXT sold was a twelve inch cube. Their subsequent offering (reworded to avoid saying “next NeXT computer”) was “significantly slimmer” at two and a half inches tall. The short and wide NeXTstation was nicknamed “the slab” and it was a somewhat common form factor: the pizza box case.
So, yes, whether Gopher was hashed out over a cheap cardboard box, or an expensive magnesium box, you can still say it was written on a pizza box to appease librarians.
30 August 2020 by Sardonyx
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