Gemini, in its most technical sense, can be described as an internet protocol which serves files through a lightweight hypertext format. It was designed to replace its more antiquated predecessor the “gopher protocol” that worked on similar mechanisms. To elaborate on these technologies in less technical terms, they were both designed simply for the sharing and linking of textfiles that were interconnected and served as precursor to the modern web.
Although Gemini is a fairly recent innovation, gopher has existed for a long time but was eventually deserted because the protocol was not designed for most of the complicated tasks that current websites require for its functioning. Displaying embedded images and videos or creating an elaborate presentation for you work was not entirely feasible in a protocol that was simply designed to share textfiles. One could also share videos and other kinds of files through gopher but a framework for presenting an elaborate visual interface that most users found appealing was, however, non-existent.
Therefore the modern web grew both in size and prominence because it afforded users with an appealing interface through which they could discover any kind of information. Newer iterations of the web, building on top of the http and tcp protocol, came to incorporate full blown applications a user could interact with. The more elaborate and complex the web became to address the needs of users, the less necessary it was for anyone to ever leave the browser for their day to day tasks.
Such a chain of events, although seemingly innocuous, has paved way for an internet that is now largely controlled by tech corporations who not only provide the means to access information but have also come to decide what kind of information we have access to. Mechanisms which enabled the web to create monolithic applications, guised under the pretext of improving user experience, were perverted in order to track and mine user data for profit. Unlike the early stages of the internet where every site represented the values, experiences and ideas of an individual, the modern web is a seething mass of disparate, useless and fundamentally misleading information designed mostly for the purpose of hoarding your attention.
In order to provide a place for users disgruntled by their experience with the modern web, project Gemini took form. The project essentially hoped to create a protocol that valued the privacy and autonomy of users. Bereft of technologies like javascript that contributes to much of the bloat in modern web applications, Gemini took inspiration from the design of the gopher protocol by emphasizing on the sharing of text documents. However, it also introduced new features like “gemtext” modelled after markdown that allowed for a clean formatting of gemini pages, often called capsules. Unlike normal websites, creating a gemini capsule is quite easy with gemtext because there’s very little to learn. A lot of tilde communities offer shell accounts with a gemini capsule.
Just like how you need a browser to access the web, accessing “geminispace” requires a dedicated gemini client. For Linux, amfora is a popular terminal client. Lagrange is a cross platform gemini client that supports Windows, Mac OS, Linux and even mobile platforms like Android and IOS. I think browsing geminispace through these clients is bound to instill a sense of refreshment in anyone who remembers or yearns for an internet that is truly free and open.