ASCII to Binary and Binary to ASCII conversion tools?

Which is a good tool to convert ASCII to binary, and binary to ASCII? I was hoping for something like: $ echo --binary "This is a binary message" 01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110011 01110011 01100001 01100111 01100101 Or, more realistic: $ echo "This is a binary message" | ascii2bin 01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110011 01110011 01100001 01100111 01100101 And also the reverse: $ echo "01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110011 01110011 01100001 01100111 01100101" | bin2ascii This is a binary message PS: I'm using bash PS2: I hope I didn't get the wrong binary