MacBinary
Filename extension |
.bin |
---|---|
Internet media type |
application/macbinary application/x-macbinary |
Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) | com.apple.macbinary-archive |
MacBinary is a
MacBinary was widely supported on the
The dual-fork nature of the HFS system was not used on
Description
In contrast to other computers of the era,
This presented a serious problem when the file had to be stored on other computer systems. Those systems, unaware of the fork concept, would have to store the two forks as separate files. This presented the possibility that the two would be separated at some point, or not properly recombined when they were transmitted back to the Mac. This problem led to a number of solutions that combined the two forks together into a single file, and then automatically pulling them back apart when they reached another Mac. MacBinary was one of the most popular solutions, although
Files encoded with MacBinary, regardless of the version, usually have a .bin or .macbin
MacBinary is similar to BinHex, but MacBinary produces binary files as opposed to ASCII text. Thus, MacBinary files are smaller than BinHex files, but older applications and servers are more likely to corrupt them.
History
The first incarnation of MacBinary was released in 1985. The standard was originally specified by Dennis Brothers (author of the terminal program MacTEP and later an Apple employee), BinHex author Yves Lempereur,
Two years later it was updated to MacBinary II, to accommodate changes in Mac OS. MacBinary II remained compatible with subsequent updates of the operating system for some time. This changed with the release of Mac OS 8, which necessitated the release of MacBinary III in 1996. In the meantime, Apple itself had released the AppleSingle and AppleDouble formats, which serve the same purpose as MacBinary, but correct some problems with it.
References
- Dennis Brothers, "Macintosh Binary Transfer Format 'MacBinary' Standard (Proposal)", Micro-networked Apple User's Group (CompuServe), 1985
- Adam Engst, "Macintosh Internet File Format Primer", TidBits, 31 August 1991
- "comp.sys.mac.comm FAQ"
External links
- Mac Binary Converter, an open source tool for converting between different Macintosh file encodings.
- macutils, converts between different Macintosh file encodings
- MacBinary II Spec
- MacBinary II+ Spec, a proposed enhancement to MacBinary to incorporate a directory tree, never widely adopted.