[Coco] emulator questions

[LM]

I just joined the list and was reading the archives.  The
information on MESS looked really interesting, so I downloaded
the software and it looks very promising.  I have most of my
old CoCo games on 5 and 1/4 disks.  I owned a hard drive
that connected to my CoCo using Disk Basic from Hard Drive
Specialist.  I also bought a program called Xenocopy when I first
switched to an IBM compatible from my CoCo.  It's supposed to let
you copy CoCo files from a 5 and 1/4 to a PC's a: drive.  Was wondering, 
how do you get the games from a 5 and 1/4 or a hard drive into the 
MESS emulator so you can play them?  Most of my games are in Basic, but I 
think the majority of them are saved in binary instead of ASCII mode.  
Would also love to figure out how to convert the files from binary to 
ASCII so I can view them properly in a text editor on the PC.  If I
remember correctly, there used to be a SAVE "filename.bas",A mode to
save to ASCII, but that was with my 5 and 1/4 drive interface.  Any hints 
on how to do any of this would be greatly appreciated.  Am hoping to
get most of my old BASIC CoCo games converted to ASCII and saved to a CD.
My 5 and 1/4 disks are beginning to fail on me.

Thanks.

Laura