Computing pioneers · 1969

RFC 20: ASCII format for Network Interchange

Vint Cerf

Network Working Group · Request for Comments 20 · 16 October 1969

Vint Cerf’s 1969 proposal to use 7-bit ASCII on the ARPA network, with the code table of the USA standard.

Poster of “RFC 20: ASCII format for Network Interchange”: the text in four columns
Shown in the ivorygenesis theme
Print from
A2
License
Free reproduction (RFC Editor)
Retrieved
27 September 2026
Language
English
Rights holder
Vint Cerf, 1969

Theme

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Print from A2: the smallest A size at which the body text is at least 8 pt.

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Edition

RFC Editor plain-text edition, put into machine readable form by Robbie Bennet in 1999, complete. The heading block and the note of that edition (whose square brackets are left out) are in the header and the footer; page headers and footers are left out; the code table and the tables of the legend are reproduced unchanged, without the blank lines between the rows of the table of control characters; the footnotes of section 4.2 are set as paragraphs; the misreadings of the original (“X’OD’”, “(252)”, “FS File Separator IS)”) are kept.

Rights

All RFCs may be freely reproduced and translated (unmodified).

RFC Editor, https://www.rfc-editor.org/faq/. RFC 20 itself carries no copyright notice. The code table reproduces USA Standard X3.4-1968, as the RFC says.

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