SERVERS
[Access to WWW, WAIS, Gopher and FTP Servers]
| Table Of Contents | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Preface | |||
| Web Servers' Indexes |
Web Servers by Country | State and City Servers | |
| Wais | Gopher | FTP | |
There are countless tens of thousands of servers of different protocol and functionality. If you don't find what you're looking for here, my suggestion is to do a Search using one of the many search engines available.
In the process of trying to put this page together, an underlying question naturally arose: what exactly is a Web Server? What is the difference between a web server and an HTTP server? An HTTP server can only be accessed through a Web browser, but so can a gopher or FTP server. It can be confusing.
In one very fundamental respect, servers of any protocol that can be contacted via a Web browser through URL links may be considered 'Web Servers.' A client program like Netscape Navigator, for instance, contains within it the capacity to emulate gopher and ftp client software, to name the two most prominent. Going the other way, however, a gopher client cannot retrieve documents on an HTTP server (although it can retrieve HTML documents themselves), and is constrained to scour its menus hierarchically, the tree structure familiar to DOS users.
The environment of hypertext transport protocol and HTML is quickly engulfing the Net. It looks as though all servers will one day be Web servers, but there will still be the need to specify and define job function. Webspace, Gopherspace and FTP-space differ in their methods of organizing, accessing, and linking an ever expanding universe of bits and bytes. But the end game is the same: to transport digitized files.
Nevertheless, a common ground is always sought, and a system more conducive to the way people actually associate ideas and images can not help but emerge as the means of choice. I expect that some day all servers will be accessible through the Web. A Gopher menu as seen through a Web browser is basically the same as on a gopher client; but when using a browser, we have the freedom to break out of its tree structure to some other place in cyberspace.
HMTP [Hypermedia Transport Protocol] can create a picture around a central idea, whatever that may be. The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the means whereby a browser can connect with servers of other than HMTP; but the URL idea seems to have been created with the Web in mind.
The information available below is not only by region, country and city, but at each level other networks open up to accessibility. E-Mail has its domain name gateways between networks; the World Wide Web is another "room with many doors."
For example, BELNET is the Belgium Networking System. Brussels, its capital, is the unofficial headquarters or seat of economic governance for the European Community. Once one is accessing the domain name of the WWW server in Belgium, you will be in touch with whatever internet service provider is coordinating the network. This is a GATEWAY into whatever networks its computers connect.
There are degrees of specialization to be found in any of the Libraries, Directories or relational databases from Arts to Government. They have their servers as well.
For example, say you wish to focus in on specific research material, something that can only reside in an ancient or rare book buried in a library or museum somewhere in another part of the world. [I didn't say the example was going to be easy!]. Through the Directories and Libraries you can find lists of servers that deal with your question, running down a single thread. But going through a country's index server gives you access to local organizations, consortiums, libraries, universities, collectives, and trades, as well as accomodations, festivals, and events. Here is where you may find EMAIL ADDRESSES.
What you are trying to find is the community of people in the world who are connected by your interest, they probably will be able to answer your questions one way or the other.
"Direct contact," whether through "The Matrix," mailing lists, or newsgroups is the end game.
So, the interactiveness of the Web affords the opportunity to find contact points in a given community, real people who possibly can put you in touch with what you're looking for.
There are hundreds of networks in the world (O'Reilly & Associates' book on "Networking" catalogs 150 networks); connected by gateways with sometimes cumbersome protocal interfacing. Some day all the networks will be connected seamlessly with drone computers automatically translating protocal into the proper destination name on the other network. Or, alternatively, there might be a "Universal Translator" built into every operating system; then there won't be any need for gateways, they will have been internalized into the workings of the computer-network-system, a centering without a center, spread out over the entire system of participatory computer networks around the world.
In the meantime, however, pioneer-like, we break trail.
![[WWW Banner]](www2.gif)
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The USENET newsgroups: comp.misc and comp.sources.wanted contain lists of anonymous FTP sites. Also, if you have an Archie client, you have access to the Archie service and its worldwide servers making all anonymous FTP sites and the files thereon available.
There are Search Engines that cater to finding E-Mail and Domain Name Addresses.
This way please for Government Pages by state, and Maps from around the World.
