Re: Even in the 1980's
Uucp and uuencode were available in the 1970's, and xmodem must be from about the same era. I was also using a BBC micro as a terminal emulator (I wrote my own full VT52 and Tek. 4010 emulators) in the early 1980s, and transferred software through rs232 as hex dumps using BEEBs many times.
But I do understand the article. I just thought I'd mention existing file transfer programs that were widely available.