Is there a faster way?

[T. R. Ponn]

Hello,

I have a binary file that I want to divide up between 2 variables, 
depending on user input.

With memBank value "01"
a file like this: "12345678"
would end up: "1357" in variable bank0 and "2468" in bank1.
With memBank value "10" the same file would end up: "2468" in variable 
bank0 and "1357" in bank1

The file can be sizable (maybe 128MB), though far more typical would be 
around 8 MB.  The following code snippet accomplishes the feat in about 
25 seconds for a file size of 8MB...using my G4/500MHz, OS 9.2.2 and 
Rev1.1.1.

on eenieMeenieMinieMo fileContents
  put the length of fileContents into fileLength
    if char 1 of memBank=0 then  --memBank="01", so start with even bank
      repeat with b=1 to ((trunc(fileLength/2))+1)
        put char ((b*2)-1) of fileContents after bank0
        put char (b*2) of fileContents after bank1
      end repeat
    else  --memBank="10", so start with odd bank
      repeat with b=1 to ((trunc(fileLength/2))+1)
        put char ((b*2)-1) of fileContents after bank1
        put char (b*2) of fileContents after bank0
      end repeat
    end if
end eenieMeenieMinieMo

Size of code is of no consequence (I've already cut the length in 
half...it's just easier to understand what I'm trying to accomplish in 
this form), but speed is.  Any ideas on how to speed this up?  The 
utilization of arrays seemed to have little effect on it.  Thanks for 
any help you can lend!

Best Regards,

Tim Ponn