[ih] First file transfer on ARPANET

[Matthias Bärwolff]

IMPs could get a copy of a neighboring IMP's software program, in
order to recover from failure or simply as a mechanism to distribute
new IMP software versions. This is sure documented in one of the very
early BBN reports on IMPs. Not a file transfer, strictly speaking;
more of a dd operation, I assume; but it's close.

2012/12/13 Vint Cerf <vint at google.com>:
> IMP data came in packets - it was not a formal file transfer.
>
> v
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 7:03 PM, Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org> wrote:
>>
>> I remember an email conversation I had with one of the original ARPANET
>> developers, who mentioned that they moved stuff (files) from one machine to
>> another by quickly writing 2 very simple programs.  One would open a
>> connection and simply copy whatever bytes arrived into a file.  A similar
>> program on the "other" machine would open a connection and read from a file,
>> sending bytes to the other guy.   This could be done essentially from Day
>> One, coordinating by telephone.
>>
>> Sorry, I can't remember who it was -- probably Bernie Cosell, Dave Walden,
>> or Ben Barker (who may all be listening even now!)
>>
>> So, depending on how you want to define "first file transfer", it could
>> have happened very shortly after the first 2 IMPs were connected.
>>
>> In addition to what the developers were doing, Kleinrock's UCLA crew were
>> collecting statistics from the IMPs, so they may have been doing "file
>> transfers" too.   Perhaps Vint remembers more about how that was done?
>>
>> Of course, after Telnet and remote login were implemented, one could log
>> in to a remote machine and do the 2-program kind of file transfer without
>> need for telephones.  I suspect that kind of scenario was the precursor to
>> the FTP, which used a Telnet control connection to set up and use separate
>> data connections -- same kind of approach as the "2 simple programs"
>> situation, but automated.
>>
>> I'd expect that the "first file transfer" was done either by the BBN
>> installers, or by someone in UCLA's measurements project, very soon after
>> the first IMPs got running, and probably well before "remote login" was
>> common.
>>
>> /Jack
>>
>> On Dec 11, 2012 9:47 PM, "Richard Bennett" <richard at bennett.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear Historians,
>>>
>>> I'm curious about when the first file transfer was done successfully on
>>> ARPANET. Given that the initial focus was remote login, I'm guessing that
>>> rudimentary file transfers wouldn't have been done until sometime in 1970.
>>> Does anyone remember?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> RB
>>>
>>> --
>>> Richard Bennett
>>>
>