Date   : Tue, 10 Nov 1987 09:30:55 EDT
From   : "John S. Fisher" <FISHER@CICGE.RPI.EDU>
Subject: Re: More Help on ARC Files

I do not know much about the FTP facilities on your VAX, but I do
know that there has been some historical confusion about the
appropriate TYPE command needed when fetching binary files.  The
Tops-20 system (Simtel20) supports variable "byte" sizes, and it
is necessary to inform FTP what byte size is being used.
    The archive blurb suggests TYPE L 8 (meaning an 8-bit byte)
for binary transfers.  I have never gotten this to work on my
IBM host, but TYPE L 32 works just fine (plus one other command
to disable ASCII->EBCDIC translation).  You might try preceding
the RETR command in FTP with TYPE.  If your implementation does
not support the TYPE command, try QUOT TYPE L 32 (or 8).