E-MAIL AS A TOOL FOR SHARING BINARY FILES AMONG SCIENTISTS

The use of plain-text encoding and decoding software allows binary dat a files to be successfully transferred between sites via an E-mail pat hway. The following paper examines the mechanics of the public domain UUENCODE and UUDECODE software combination. A short tutorial allows th e reader to apply the algorithms to sample data files. An understandin g of the nature of the utilities and their limitations may allow one t o avoid potential pitfalls associated with their use. Many of the comm only used encode/decode software packages are cited, and potential sou rces of these public domain utilities are provided.