What are Binaries?
Basically, binaries are anything but plain text. For the purpose of ABCS, this includes Spectrum game snapshots, inlay scans, pictures, photos of machines, schematics of hardware, sound files, emulators, game remakes (e.g. PC versions of Speccy games), posters, box art, game maps, and anything else that can be linked to a Sinclair of some sort.
Files that contain compiled computer code are referred to as binaries, sometimes used interchangeably with object files. However, any file can be encoded to binary format; including digital graphics, movies, or music. Text-based computer languages like C and C++ are used to write programs that are subsequently compiled to binary form. This is because computers can only read the simpler language of binary digits: one or zero interpreted as on or off. Each digit or value is one bit of data. Eight bits of data equals one byte of information. A binary file viewed with a hex editor will display the file contents as continuous blocks of bytes, or the digital equivalent of the source code. Online binaries are often associated with USENET, where worldwide subscribers can share programs and multimedia data. However, USENET was designed for exchanging text messages. For this reason, binaries must be encoded to a text-based system, then decoded on the receiving end, making it possible to exchange
• Binaries are to newsgroups as “attached files” are to e-mail, or “downloads” are to web browsing. Although many people read and post to newsgroups for the text content, since files can be encoded into text form for later decoding, newsgroups also can contain files. While theoretically these files could be text files, since text can already be read directly from a newsgroup, most people do not post text files as file attachments in newsgroups. Since non-text files are referred to as “binary” files, newsgroups meant for file attachments usually have “binaries” in the newsgroup name. What sort of binaries are there? • Pictures (alt.binaries.disney but also various adult groups), multimedia, MP3, application programs (legit and pirated — I object to the latter), etc. How to post them? • Check the instructions that come with your favorite newsreader. • Specialized utilities: See the Mac, Windows or Unix utilities pages on this site. How to read them? • Use your regular Newsreader • Web:
