BinHex 4.0 questions.

[napabar]

Anyone know the following?

1. Can BinHex 4.0 run on a Mac 128K? It was written in 1985, so I'm assuming so. I know it works just fine on my Mac 512K (What other Macs were out in 1985? :lol: )

2. Can you use BinHex 4.0 to convert a directory with contents, or is it just on a file by file basis? I can't seem to figure out how to do a directory.

3. Is there a way to BinHex files on Mac OS X? I found NutCase BinHex, but it was written in the early days of Mac OS X, and crashes upon launch on Snow Leopard.

Any help would be appreciated! :?:

 

[Dog Cow]

2. Can you use BinHex 4.0 to convert a directory with contents, or is it just on a file by file basis? I can't seem to figure out how to do a directory.

That's encoding, so you'd need an archiver first, then binhex the resulting archive.

3. Is there a way to BinHex files on Mac OS X?

Yeah. Check out the binhex command. Or similar. There's a CLI program for it for sure. I'll come up with it later if someone else doesn't. It's built-in to your Mac, preinstalled.

 

[napabar]

Isn't BinHex a form of encoding?

I found the tool in the Terminal. Don't know how I missed that. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get it to work. It decodes just fine, but whenever I encode I get this message

end of file detected reading 131072 bytes at offset 0 from "Daleks"

 

[Dog Cow]

Isn't BinHex a form of encoding?

Yes. I should have been more clear in my first sentence. I should have said, "BinHex is an encoder, not an archiver."

It decodes just fine, but whenever I encode I get this message
end of file detected reading 131072 bytes at offset 0 from "Daleks"

I don't know. Maybe that's a package. Forked files should not be a problem. OS X knows how to deal with them.

If I have a file named foo.txt in my directory, this command works just fine on it:

binhex encode foo.txt

 

[napabar]

Aha! I wasn't putting the word "encode" after the BinHex command. Funny, the help doesn't mention to do it that way.

It's working fine! Thanks Dog Cow!

As for using an archiver, well I'm not aware of any that would work on a Mac 128K. Looks like I'd have to send down each file separately as a .HQX file.

 

[napabar]

I wrote an automator script that prompts what file you'd like to BinHex, and saves it to your desktop.

You can access it on my public iDisk. Username=nilesmitchell

 

[napabar]

Even better, I created a Service for the Finder. This allows you to right click on a file or files (no folders) and convert them to BinHex.

On my public iDisk, there is a workflow called "BinHex". Open it in Automator and do a "Save as" and name it what you like. The default just says "BinHex" and will show up at the bottom of your contextual menu when you right click.

I think this only works with Snow Leopard, so I'll leave the "BinHex Prompt" application up there too for Leopard users.

 

[napabar]

Now in the Mac App Store. Look for OldHex.