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

Relationships

Is subsequent version of

Internal signatures

XBIN (eXtended BIN)

Note
BOF; Offset: 0; Magic Bytes: 'XBIN.'

Byte sequences

Min Frag Length
Absolute from BOF
Offset
0
Max offset
0
Byte Sequence
5842494E1A
Endianness
None

Changelog

  • Updated in V115

    Release date
    15 November 2023

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

  • Updated in V102

    Release date
    15 February 2022

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

  • Added in V101

    Release date
    15 February 2022

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

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