The Unix way is streams of bytes. How those bytes are interpreted is up to the endpoints of the streams. Sure, a lot of endpoints interpret byte streams as tex

The Unix way is streams of bytes. How those bytes are interpreted is up to the endpoints of the streams. Sure, a lot of endpoints interpret byte streams as text. That's not Unix, that's a particular endpoint. You will notice that Unix does not even offer 'text' files (like Windows does). Or ISAM files, or random access files. or Fortran carriage control. Just binary files. Because the Unix way is streams of bytes, and nothing more.