ARPAWOCKY

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Jabberwocky: Public Domain image by John Tenniel

In my previous post we had my favorite example of the Easter egg RFCs, RFC 1149, A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers. This was not the first example of humor in this massive database, as the first one occurred 17 years prior. The first ever example of adding humor to the RFC database occurred back in 1973, and was written by D.L. Covill in RFC 527. It was called ARPAWOCKY, which was a parody of the famous nonsense poem called Jabberwockey written by Lewis Carroll, the creator of Alice in Wonderland. <src> From my research, it is unclear who D.L. Covill was to the ARPANET project, but he deserves credit for starting this long tradition of humorous RFCs.

During the time this was written, the Internet as we know it did not exist, and the RFC database was used for ARPANET, a small network created by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, the predecessor to the current DARPA (Defense Research Projects Agency). This particular RFC started the long tradition of creating funny Easter egg RFCs.

The Poem

Twas brillig, and the Protocols
Did USER-SERVER in the wabe.
All mimsey was the FTP,
And the RJE outgrabe,

Beware the ARPANET, my son;
The bits that byte, the heads that scratch;
Beware the NCP, and shun
the frumious system patch,

He took his coding pad in hand;
Long time the Echo-plex he sought.
When his HOST-to-IMP began to limp
he stood a while in thought,

And while he stood, in uffish thought,
The ARPANET, with IMPish bent,
Sent packets through conditioned lines,
And checked them as they went,

One-two, one-two, and through and through
The IMP-to-IMP went ACK and NACK,
When the RFNM came, he said "I'm game",
And sent the answer back,

Then hast thou joined the ARPANET?
Oh come to me, my bankrupt boy!
Quick, call the NIC! Send RFCs!
He chortled in his joy.

Twas brillig, and the Protocols
Did USER-SERVER in the wabe.
All mimsey was the FTP,
And the RJE outgrabe.

If you are familiar with the the Internet and TCP/IP, you'll notice some other familiar terms such as FTP, ACK, and NACK. The term IMP, is actual in reference to the predecessor to modern IP routers, referred to as Interface Message Processors (IMP). An IMP was the thing that allowed you to connect up to the ARPANET. <src>

These RFCs are not only fun, they can be a great way to learn tidbits of information regarding the technology and history behind the Internet.

Thanks for reading! If you are interested in other related technologies, I suggest you visit the RFC database at https://ietf.org/standards/rfcs/.