These programs convert between textual and binary representations of numbers.
ascii2binary reads input consisting of textual representations of numbers
separated by whitespace and produces as output the binary equivalents. The type
and precision of the binary output is selected using command line flags.

binary2ascii reads input consisting of binary numbers and converts them to
their textual representation. Command line flags specify the type and size
of the binary numbers and provide control over the format of the output.
Unsigned integers may be written out in binary, octal, decimal, or hexadecimal.
Signed integers may be written out only in binary or decimal. Floating point
numbers may be written out only decimal, either in standard or scientific
notation. (If you want to examine the binary representation of floating point
numbers, just treat the input as a sequence of unsigned characters.)

The two programs are useful for generating test data, for inspecting binary
files, and for interfacing programs that generate textual output to programs
that require binary input and conversely. They can also be useful when it is
desired to reformat numbers.

WWW: http://billposer.org/Software/a2b.html