What the diffrence between mayaAscii (.ma) & mayaBinary (.mb)?

.ma files can be edited in any text editor like Wordpad. If you know a bit about coding and such you can take a simple .ma and create different versions of the scene without even opening Maya

Darkon

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Red bellows of flame have blackened my stones
Convulsing my frame and cracking my bones
Hell's dragons of steel who roar in their chains
Crawl into my caves to suck out my veins.....

-The Mountain P.F.M.

thanx

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Yeah, but no but yeah but no....