ARPAWOCKY
A parody of Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky, rewritten with ARPANET terminology and concepts.
Merryman, R., "ARPAWOCKY", RFC 527, DOI 10.17487/RFC0527, May 1973, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc527>.
@misc{rfc527,
series = {Request for Comments},
number = 527,
howpublished = {RFC 527},
publisher = {RFC Editor},
doi = {10.17487/RFC0527},
url = {https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc527},
author = {R. Merryman},
title = {{ARPAWOCKY}},
pagetotal = 1,
year = 1973,
month = may,
} RFC text
Network Working Group R. Merryman (UCSD-CC)
Request for Comments: 527 6/22/73
ARPAWOCKY
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.
D.L. COVILL
May 1973
AI ELI5
On this page
§1ARPAWOCKY: A Network Parody
RFC 527, titled ARPAWOCKY, is a humorous poem by R. Merryman that parodies Lewis Carroll's famous Jabberwocky from Through the Looking-Glass. The parody keeps the original poem's nonsense-verse structure and rhythm but replaces the fantasy setting and creatures with ARPANET terminology, acronyms, and concepts.
The poem has no technical content and serves as a cultural artifact: a playful record of the jargon and concerns that occupied the minds of early ARPANET researchers.
Someone took a famous nonsense poem and rewrote it using all the confusing computer terms people used on the early network. It's funny because the jargon is so thick and strange.
§2ARPANET Terms in Verse
The poem references many real ARPANET concepts: USER-SERVER describes the client-server relationship; FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and RJE (Remote Job Entry) are file and job transmission protocols; NCP (Network Control Protocol) is the predecessor to TCP; IMPs are the Interface Message Processors that route packets; RFNM is a Request For Next Message, an acknowledgment; Echo-plex is a teletype feature for local echo.
The poem's hero takes his coding pad, struggles with the HOST-to-IMP connection, watches the ARPANET send packets with ACK and NACK messages, and celebrates joining the network. The tone is playful and self-aware about the technical complexity.
The poem uses real ARPANET words like FTP and IMP but puts them in a poem where they sound like they're from a fantasy adventure. It's a joke that pokes fun at how much jargon the network people used.
§3A Window on Early ARPANET Culture
ARPAWOCKY is valuable not for technical content but as a cultural artifact. It captures the vocabulary and concerns of the ARPANET research community: protocols (USER-SERVER, FTP, RJE, NCP), network hardware (IMPs, TIPs), the bits and bytes that make up messages, and the acknowledgments (ACK, NACK) that govern reliable communication. The poet's affectionate tone toward the ARPANET, with its monsters and challenges, reflects how researchers thought about their network as a living system.
This poem is like a time machine. It shows what ARPANET people cared about and how they talked about their work.