I had raised some issues about this in my previous email.
> An example where portable binary files is important is when the
> 'solver' runs on one architecture but the interactive post-processor(s)
> run on another (possibly desktop) architecture. Requiring off-line
> conversion is not necessarily the best option in this scenario.
This is the very same case I used at several meetings as the
protypical example of the need for interoperability. Conversion
(i.e., Bill's Option #A) isn't the best solution, but it is the
solution that is easiest from an implementation and a performance
perspective.