In the original movie Tron, the Tron program was designed to monitor the internal network of the company.
Did Flynn make a copy of that program and insert it into his experimental world, or did he remove it from the company and add it to his world?
If it is the latter, then that would mean there's a perfectly good Tron program back at the company, right?
The voiceover makes it pretty clear that Tron was transferred from the old system whereas Clu was written specifically for the new system;
KEVIN: Tron was created by Alan for the old system. I brought him here to protect this one. Clu was my creation, a program designed to create a perfect world.
In the original script, it's explicit that he's the same program, rather than a copy. The back-story describes Tron as having been "dusted off", "seriously upgraded, over-clocked, armed for trouble" and "reprogrammed" from a "crude security program...strictly low-rez" into a "ruthless cyber-ninja."
Flynn says that Tron was made for the days of the MCP program, since that was no longer necessary he brought him with him to his new Grid to act as a protector.
Since Tron had no more utility in the ENCOM system, it sounds like he was moved to the new Grid underneath Flynn's arcade.
Technically, yes. However, the concept of copying things in fictionalized computer worlds is often full of such issues or possible unaddressed inconsistencies. Just consider the text of your question, as an example, every time it is viewed copies are made in the process. The underlying way nearly all software functions involves redundancy, backups, and making copies at multiple levels, including copies inherent in the very process of moving "locations." Presumably, the same would be true in the world of Tron.
In a way the issue reminds me of a similar issue with transporter technology in fiction. Since if you think about the way such technology functions (whether or not the being's actually atoms are moved from A to B) a clone is made and the original is killed - i.e., it is a fax machine with a shredder on the sending side. What would Star Trek be like if they didn't vaporize the original every time? However, like Tron, if the concept and impact of these replications don't serve the story they are often sidelined and not addressed.
