well I'll be darned!
I just did man ftp on the aix box, my linux box, and perldoc Net::FTP on linux, and they all indeed do say ASCII is the default!

Now I don't understand how I've been successfully uploading my movies for 2 months now without setting any such parameters for Net::FTP.

I DID however finally dig up the mention of
ftp->type('binary');
on the AIX box (the upload target machine) (it's not in the perldoc on my linux box here at home) so I'm assuming I did see it on the Mac, too.. (only "assuming" right now, tho) and I'm not just inventing it after all... ooof!

But what might this then mean? Do the different platforms have significantly different versions of Net::FTP !?
Can that be right?