Binary II

Binary II (or BNY) is an archival file format used to preserve the integrity of Apple II files when transmitted by modem. It was introduced around 1986 by Gary B. Little, author of the Modem MGR communications program.

Apple II files have metadata and filesystem attributes (file type, creation and modification dates, access permissions, etc.) which can be lost when passing through telecommunications services, so Binary II encapsulates one or more Apple II files together with their metadata into a portable container. The contents of the container may or may not be compressed; the container itself is simply a wrapper that preserves the contents regardless of how the file is transmitted.

Extensions

.bny

The classic Binary II archive; contains one or more Apple II files.

.bqy / .bsq

A Binary II wrapper that contains a file compressed using Squeeze (common before the rise of ShrinkIt).

.bxy

Contains a ShrinkIt archive (NuFX compression); standard for transmitting Apple II files throughout the '90s.

The BXY variant was preferred by GEnie and nearly all the content in its Apple II RoundTable Software Library uses it.

Extracting Binary II files

Using CiderPress II, a Binary II archive can be extracted to other formats including a variety of emulator-ready disk images. To extract the contents of an archive to an Apple II disk image, follow these steps:

1. First open the archive and examine its contents.
   1. Check whether the contents are DOS or ProDOS
   2. Check whether it holds the contents of one disk or multiple disks. If multiple, the contents will need to be extracted to multiple disk images.
2. Click File → New Disk Image, then choose your preferred output.
   1. For disk size, you'll normally want to keep the default 140 KB option
   2. For filesystem, select either DOS or ProDOS, depending on what your archive contains.
   3. For filetype, select whatever meets your needs. If you plan to use the disk image in something like AppleWin, select either DO (if DOS) or PO (if ProDOS).
3. Click Create, and save the empty disk image with a temporary name like temp.po. Repeat the process if you're extracting contents to multiple disk images.
4. Open the newly-created disk image and the original BXY archive in separate CiderPress II windows.
   1. In the archive, select and copy the entire contents (or the contents you wish to extract to the disk image).
   2. In the new disk image, paste in the contents.
   3. In the new disk image, rename the volume (optional).
   4. Save the new disk image.

This should yield a DO or PO file that will work with modern emulators. If you wish to convert a DO to DSK, just change the file extension. If you wish to convert a PO to DSK, create a blank DO, copy in the contents from the PO, then change the DO's file extension to DSK.

See also

• Emulator