EFTP was a very simple

file transfer File transfer is the transmission of a computer file through a communication channel from one computer system to another. Typically, file transfer is mediated by a communications protocol. In the history of computing, numerous file transfer protocol ...

protocol developed as part of the

PARC Universal Packet The PARC Universal Packet (commonly abbreviated to PUP or PuP, although the original documents usually use Pup) was one of the two earliest internetworking protocol suites; it was created by researchers at Xerox PARC in the mid-1970s. (Technical ...

protocol suite The protocol stack or network stack is an implementation of a computer networking protocol suite or protocol family. Some of these terms are used interchangeably but strictly speaking, the ''suite'' is the definition of the communication protoco ...

Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xer ...

in the late 1970s. It was the inspiration for the

Trivial File Transfer Protocol Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a simple lockstep File Transfer Protocol which allows a client to get a file from or put a file onto a remote host. One of its primary uses is in the early stages of nodes booting from a local area network ...

(TFTP) in the

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

suite. As with its descendant, TFTP, it did not use the

reliable byte stream A reliable byte stream is a common service paradigm in computer networking; it refers to a byte stream in which the bytes which emerge from the communication channel at the recipient are exactly the same, and in exactly the same order, as they we ...

protocol of the suite ( Byte Stream Protocol in the case of PUP); rather, it ran directly on top of the basic

internetwork Internetworking is the practice of interconnecting multiple computer networks, such that any pair of hosts in the connected networks can exchange messages irrespective of their hardware-level networking technology. The resulting system of interc ...

layer. (An early version of EFTP ran on top of bare

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in ...

packets.) Also, like TFTP, it was a simple lock-step protocol; there was only ever one packet outstanding at any time, and every packet received by either party caused one packet to be sent in reply (until the termination of the transfer). Unlike TFTP, it made no provisions for sending the file-name as part of transfers, so it could only be used either in places that didn't need a file name (as with spooling), or in conjunction with another protocol that provided the file-name (as in booting). Since EFTP was so simple, it was easy to implement in a very small amount of

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...

, an important consideration at that time. It was used for

booting In computing, booting is the process of starting a computer as initiated via Computer hardware, hardware such as a button or by a software command. After it is switched on, a computer's central processing unit (CPU) has no software in its ma ...

Xerox Alto The Xerox Alto is a computer designed from its inception to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface (GUI), later using the desktop metaphor. The first machines were introduced on 1 March 1973, a decade before mass-market G ...

s over the Ethernet, and also to send files to the print spoolers of

laser printers Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively-charged cylinder called a "drum" t ...

. Various expansions of the initialism ''EFTP'' have been given, including Easy File Transfer Protocol, Ether File Transfer Protocol, and Experimental File Transfer Protocol.

References

{{reflist

Notes

* Ed Taft, ''Spruce Protocols'' (Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, June 1979) * Ed Taft,

David Boggs David Reeves Boggs (June 17, 1950 – February 19, 2022) was an American electrical and radio engineer who developed early prototypes of Internet protocols, file servers, gateways, network interface cards and, along with Robert Metcalfe and ot ...

, ''Alto Boot Protocol'' (Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, February 1979) * John Shoch, ''EFTP: A PUP-based Ether File Transfer Protocol'' (Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, June 1976) Network file transfer protocols