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What Happened To Archie?
JoLo asks: "I've just been hanging out on irc when I had to search for a file. My browser was closed, and I didn't want to open it again because I was happy having a clean desktop. So I tried to use archie, but .. I couldn't find an archie server! Can this be true?? Archie's dead? Killed by some hypertext language? When and how could this happen? And why didn't I notice it before? Does anyone have a list of running servers?"
Without making any claims that it will find the file you want, I suggest anyone pining for archie head over to:
http://ftpsearch.lycos.com
(make sure you type http, otherwise some browsers will assume you want ftp protocol)
-Alex
Was this post a troll? :) I mean you are running a browser now to post and read so the immeadiate desire to use Archie has faded, right? :)
Anyway, I found something here with Google: http://archie.emnet.co.uk/
Please let me know how this pans out. I never really needed to use Archie (too much of a youngun I guess) but I remember accessing it with Mosaic.
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Unfortunatly the vast majority of people now have never even heard of archie. I've been on the net for about as long as practable, but that's ony 5 or 6 years.
I have never even used archie, I read about it in an early internet for dummies, but ask 99.99% of people and they wont have a clue.
Worse than that, todays computer science students - with thair microsoft loving ways, dont even know anything more then http, ftp and napster!
Sites like these litter the internet.
I think the main reason, from my brief research, is
Archie Closed archie.switch.ch closed down on 28 September 1999. The Canadian software company Bunyip, supplier of the Archie server software, closed down in May 1999. Having no more support for the software and no source code...
That was from hotbot's search engine. I cant get to the site at the moment.
Were any archie servers open source? That looks like your best bet. I wish I could help.