On Wed, 10 Nov 1999, Tod McQuillin wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Nov 1999, Wonko the Sane wrote:
> 
> > ...but as you all know i'm not a MacOS guy.  ok, found MacOS 7.5, but now i
> > have a question.  do i want MacBinary or BinHex format?  this is going to be
> > a clean install (not an upgrade), so which is better?

> Assuming you have software to deal with either format (Stuffit Expander
> can handle both), you should use MacBinary, since it uses significantly
> less space than BinHex and will consequently transfer over slow links in
> less time.

MacBinary has the additional advantage of being an open standard,
which means that anyone can write software that understands it.
Rob Mars' Hfs Utilities, for example, can copy a flat MacBinary file
from a *nix ffs partition directly into a MacOS hfs partition,
expanding it into two forks on the fly, and vice-versa. Only
Aladdinsoft can distribute software that supports BinHex, and so far
they've declined to support anything but MacOS and Windoze.