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From: postel@ISI.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re:  SMTP question
Message-ID: <8708052107.AA13918@bel.isi.edu>
Date: Wed, 5-Aug-87 17:07:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: bel.8708052107.AA13918
Posted: Wed Aug  5 17:07:35 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Aug-87 09:03:42 EDT
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Drew:

Once upon a time long ago and far away there were computers that
internally stored characters as 7-bit bytes.

At the time that the mail protocols were designed such computers
were a significant part of the network population.  There are still 
some of these computers in existance, and some of them do a lot of
mail forwarding. 

If a message passes through one of these computers the (high-order)
eighth bit will be lost as it is stored (however temporarally) and 
a zero value (high-order) eighth bit will be supplied as the message 
is forwarded on.

If somehow your message does not pass through any of these aging beasts
and passes only through computers that work on eight-bit bytes internally
it probably will keep all eight-bits of every byte just the way you wanted
them.  But there are no guarantees about it.

Go ask some old time BBN-er "What does 'TENEX' mean?".

--jon.