[daip] AIPS on powerpc machines running macOSX

[Eric Greisen]

Lee Rottler writes:

 > With gcc-3.3.2 and readline-4.3 installed per your instructions do you 
 > know if anyone has
 > tried building AIPS on a powerpc?  I now must support science packages 
 > like AIPS, IRAF,
 > CIAO, etc. under macOSX as well as linux and solaris.  About 20 
 > astronomers in the
 > Spitzer group are getting Mac G5's and a few have a need for AIPS.  I 
 > have been avoiding
 > AIPS support for awhile but it is time to gear up.
 > 
 > The bottom line is this,  given the above 2 packages are installed with 
 > X11 and the developer
 > tools,  will I have any trouble building this on a powerpc (mine is 
 > actually a G4)?  We are not
 > supporting Intel Macs yet.  The reason I ask is that you make a point 
 > on the AIPS webpage
 > that AIPS builds on an Intel mac.  Does this mean the build works only 
 > on an Intel mac or
 > that it builds on this platform in addition to it working on a powerpc? 
 >   Thanks.
 > 
 > Also,  after the build can one restore the line;
 > 
 > source /sw/bin/init.csh; rehash
 > 
 > in one's shell initialization file?
 > 
 > Any advice with regards to building AIPS,  specific to the powerpc,  is 
 > very welcome.

We offer binary installation for both G4/G5 and Intel Mac OSs.  Simply
fetch install.pl and put it where you weant the $AIPS_ROOT to be.
Then

        perl install.pl -n

where the -n says get the binaries.  The web top page emphasizes Intel
since that is brand new - but the PPC support has been there for quite
some time and is also mentioned.  The init.csh business only applies
if you are trying the compiles yourself - whcih we do not recommend.
The binaries we ship run up to 30% or more faster than things build
with the GNU compilers.

Eric Greisen