MATLAB: Is MATLAB 7.4 (R2007a) for Intel Mac universal

macMATLABuniversal

I would like to know if MATLAB 7.4 (R2007a) is in universal binary and is therefore running in native mode on the Intel Mac or if it is running in emulation mode.

Best Answer

MATLAB 7.4 (R2007a) is Universal.
It has both native PowerPC binaries (in $matlabroot/bin/mac) and native Intel binaries (in $matlabroot/bin/maci), and the appropriate binary is run natively when you start MATLAB.
The StartMATLAB.app application is a tiny stub helper application which starts the MATLAB executable. StartMATLAB is itself a universal binary, and runs natively on both PowerPC and on Intel. It calls the MATLAB shell script which starts the correct native MATLAB binary executable. The shell script, when called directly, automatically recognizes the correct architecture.
The InstallForMacOSX.app installer is also universal binary, but it only installs the correct native binary matching the architecture it is installing on. So, a PowerPC Mac install will only contain $matlabroot/bin/mac binaries, while an Intel Mac install will only contain $matlabroot/bin/maci binaries.
This means that R2007a is Universal, and runs with native performance on both Intel and PowerPc.
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