A/UX 2.0: "fcnvt" May Create Bad MacBinary Header (8/94)


The 'fcnvt' tool supplied with A/UX 2.0 sometimes creates a MacBinary file with a bad header. Attempts to download this file to a program that receives MacBinaries (like Microphone) fails, in that it does not recognize the file as a MacBinary file. This seems to occur usually when converting a BinHex file (like one downloaded off of USENET) to MacBinary with the following command:

fcnvt -i hex -m filename


Look at the MacBinary file that is created, and you'll notice that byte $4A is non-zero, which is incorrect, according to the MacBinary Standard. Also, byte $49, which should contain some of the Finder flags, usually seems to contain incorrect information.  Setting byte $4A to zero seems to fix the problem--the file will then successfully download.  Note that when creating a MacBinary from an AppleSingle file, these two bytes seem to be okay and the file downloads okay.
Published Date: Feb 18, 2012