Format

XBIN (eXtended BIN)

Summary

Name

XBIN (eXtended BIN)

Identifiers

PUID: fmt/1612

Description

XBIN (eXtended BIN) is a character graphics format, widely used for ANSI art. It was designed to be a successor to BIN format [fmt/208] and uses a specialized run-length encoding (RLE) compression algorithm. Although XBIN is considered to be a graphics format, it is not required to have an image. The format can be used for storing pre-made fonts and pre-made palettes which can be loaded from a viewer/editor. It is closely tied to the capabilities of the text modes of VGA graphics cards. The font can be customized, though limited to 16 colours only. XBIN allows for binary images up to 65536 columns wide, and 65536 lines high, with an alternate set of palette colours either in blink or non-blink mode. It also allows for different textmode fonts from 1 to 32 scanlines high, consisting of either 256 or 512 different characters, and its file size is smaller by using more efficient compression system to its predecessor BIN format [fmt/208].

Note

http://web.archive.org/web/20120204063040/http://www.acid.org/info/xbin/x_spec.htm http://www.acid.org/images/0896/XBIN.TXT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbin

File extensions

xb

Submitted by

The National Archives and Records Administration / The National Archives and Records Administration

Relationships

Is subsequent version of

• Binary File

Internal signatures

Changelog

• V115

  Release date

  15 November 2023

  • Updated

    XBIN (eXtended BIN): Removed format type and ammended description. Submitted by The National Archives and Records Administration.

• V102

  Release date

  15 February 2022

  • Updated

    XBIN (eXtended BIN): Fixed issue with invalid A0 character appearing in name. Issue submitted by The Science Museum.

• V101

  Release date

  15 February 2022

  • Added format

    XBIN (eXtended BIN): Full entry added. Submitted by The National Archives and Records Administration.

  • Added signature

    XBIN (eXtended BIN): Signature researched and samples provided by The National Archives and Records Administration.