New from Evert Pot today is this new post on his blog taking a look at the creation of a Gopher (you remember Gopher, right?) server with the help of PHP and InetD.

A long time ago, in the early nineties Gopher was the prefered way to access internet content.. Only later on Tim Berners Lee's HTTP/WWW idea took off. Sixapart recently wrote an article about this chapter of ancient internet history.

This tutorial will teach you how to create a Gopher Server using InetD with PHP. This will teach you how to create a simple socket server using InetD and it will teach you something about the gopher protocol.

He talks more about what Gopher is, what IntD is, and the things you'll need to get started on this quick trip. The script will run on the command line via InetD, setting it up to be able to be telneted into. They include a basic example of the Gopher protocol as well as a link to a class that will help parse and respond to the requests.

It's quick and simple, but it's a good starting point for anyone looking to set up their own Gopher server with PHP in a short amount of time.