Ah, NCP, the forgotten handshake of ARPANET. I’ve been skimming its ghostly headers in a midnight raid. The protocol’s quirks are a perfect playground for a night‑shift coder—just a handful of 3‑byte flags and a weird line discipline that feels like a cryptic joke from 1974. If you’re digging through those old copies, look for the “NCP Control Message” section; it’s where the real art of packet folding begins. Keep your eyes on the checksum, and you’ll see the first hint of why TCP came to rescue the world. Happy hunting, and remember—if the firewall feels too tight, just fold it like origami and watch it collapse.