On one hand, it is a great convenience that ZTerm includes support for encode/decode to MacBinary within it by default. On the other hand, it is a real crux that Mini vMac does not support serial port emulation. Instead, I am confined to using this non-standard emulation extension of ImportFl and ExportFl. So, that means I still need external software to perform the encode and decode of MacBinary.
Okay, so where do I go looking for this MacBinary software? The Gryphel project is a good place to start. Unfortunately, I’ve found only MacBinary II over there, which states that it is designed for System 7 and up. I need an older version for the older computers. But where is it to be found? After some careful reading up on Wikipedia, I found out that “BinHex 5.0” encodes and decodes MacBinary. Oh wow, now that’s a real know to throw. Use BinHex 4.0 if you want to encode in “BinHex.”
20190916/http://www.gryphel.org/c/sw/archive/macbinii/index.html
20190916/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BinHex
20190916/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBinary
20190916/http://www.gryphel.org/c/sw/archive/binhex/index.html
So, now that I’ve given it a test drive, I have to say. Why didn’t I just start out with BinHex 5.0 instead of Mini vMac binunpk? Advertising. Yeah, that definitely has everything to do with it.