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MATLAB for Mac OS X Announced
FunkDaddy writes "The MathWorks today announced its intention to make MATLAB, the industry's leading technical computing software, available on Mac OS X, with the next release of the MathWorks product line. With MATLAB on Mac OS X, users will be able to use powerful, sophisticated technical computing tools in a graphical and intuitive environment. You hear that mac-geek-scientist-guys? Rejoice!" It looks like perhaps that survey did some good.
Will the new Matlab run under Quartz or under XDarwin? I wonder.... And what's with the mention of Java in the press release, will matlab use Java so that it can run even slower still?
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
that is true for the math libraries, not the user interface. OS X / aqua is not XWindows... but maybe that's where java comes into play?
it might work, if apple gets the hardware accelerated java / swing under way. it's currently in the developer tools but too buggy to be enabled by default. when it works, though, swing almost runs at native speed. not bad.
n.
OK, so I was really about to lose hope over this... Mac hardware was really looking like the Right Thing for all of my needs *except* for the fact that there was no Matlab available for OS X. I would have to believe that Apple was made very aware of how killer it would be to have this happen, and that they may have had to toss in some cash to bankroll this on the front end. Does anybody know if this is the way it worked?
Babar
Octave is a wonderful piece of software, but there are still many features that it lacks which, alas, tend to be just the ones I find myself needing more often. Weirdly enough, I don't really mind paying for Matlab, either. But I *do* find the #@!$!#@# license manager deal to be a COMPLETE lose. Smart people work there; surely they can come up with a better plan than the one they have. :-(
Babar
Up until recently, I had been using ancient versions of MATLAB on some forgotten undergrad machines in my department. Looked and worked decent on the Apple Power Macintosh and Sun SPARCstation machines I was using. A few months ago, I began using MATLAB for real projects (read: I finally learned to how actually use the thing). =)
a .com
But... let me tell you, the non-Windows versions of MATLAB 6.1 (aka MATLAB Release 12) stink. They must have used some wonky Windows-to-UNIX porting kit for the more recent versions, as the interface is totally Windows looking on the Solaris and Linux versions I've used. Sure, the whole package works great and Simulink has saved my skin more than once -- but the interface is terrible.
Another app I've been using heavily is Maple. I started with one of the earlier revisions of Maple V and have since worked my way up thru Maple 6 to Maple 7. It's "only" a simbolic mathematics program, but it's a **VERY** well done cross-platform port. The Windows version looks like a Windows app. The "classic" Mac OS 8 / Mac OS 9 version looks like a Mac app. And the UNIX versions (commercial unices and Linux) look like nice, proper X11 apps (though perhaps a bit more Motif based than most GTK or Qt folks would like). Kudos to Maplesoft/Waterloo for supporting so many platforms in such a pleasent way.
Now if only Matlab (which, BTW, uses part of the Maple engine for its symbolic math module) would only take a cue from Maple...
(In a related note, I have no idea how well Mathematica works these days, but the screenshots look decent. The last time I used that app was on a NeXTstation -- it was a great NeXT port. Their Mac OS X version screenshots look pretty nice, too.)
http://www.maplesoft.com
http://www.mathematic
my sources say that matlab for OS X will run under XDarwin and not under aqua... hey, at least this gives us a chance to write something better and brand gnu :) and there's always orboros X to give XDarwin the same look and feel as aqua
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Have you seen GNU Octave? It's not as featureful as the absolute latest version of Matlab, but it was more than sufficient for me for my neural networks class. In fact, I used it last night on my final exam.
If you know Perl (or want to learn), another alternative is the Perl PDL Perl Data Language module. I used that for a semester project, and it worked great.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.