BinHex

BinHex, short for "binary-to-hexadecimal", is a binary-to-text encoding system that was used on the Mac OS for sending binary files through e-mail. It is similar to Uuencode, but combined both "forks" of the Mac file system together along with extended file information. BinHexed files take up more space than the original files, but will not be corrupted by non-"8-bit clean" software.

History

BinHex was originally written by Tim Mann for the TRS-80, as a stand-alone version of an encoding scheme originally built into a popular terminal emulator. It worked by converting the binary file contents to hexadecimal numbers, which were themselves encoded as ASCII digits and letters. BinHex files of the era were typically given the file extension .hex. BinHex was used for sending files via major online services such as CompuServe, which were not "8-bit clean" and required ASCII armoring to survive. CompuServe later addressed this problem in the mid-1980s with the addition of 8-bit clean file transfer protocols, and solutions like BinHex stopped being used.