Well, I don’t have an Intel-based Mac but I think I have successfully created a .pkg installer for IRAF 2.13 BETA 2. The install process is the same, create the IRAF User, run the installer, then run the install script … and I just realized I forgot to put the .pkg installer in a folder with a README, but oh well. Someone with an Intel Mac and some bravery, give it a shot. It’s available at the download page.
Update A commenter says it seemed to work! Any other reviews, please post in comments.
Another Update It would appear the name of the .pkg is wrong, it says 2.12 BETA 2 but it’s 2.13, I assure you.
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Check out iraf.net right now for links to binaries of IRAF and some external packages running natively on Intel Macintoshes! If you have a Macbook or intel Mac mini, here’s your chance to test them out and help find any bugs, etc.
FYI, it has been reported that IRAF will run in rosetta fairly painlessly. Can IRAF run in a mixed mode where some external packages are in rosetta and some native? I don’t know, I bet not. Someone wants to buy ME a Mac mini I’ll let you know. 
Update My Universal Binary of the IRAF Button is now available on the IRAF Button page.
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If you want an Intel-native version of IRAF as soon as possible, the first step is to get an Intel-IRAF box in the hands of IRAF developers. I suggest you visit the IRAF.net page and make a donation. I guess it’ll be an intel based iMac, since that’s the cheapest option at the moment. You can see that they certainly want to do the port, but need a machine first.
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p>The new forum-based IRAF support forum, IRAF.net is now open for business. I’ll try to contribute some there, in addition to my posts here. Looks to be handy, check it out.
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So, I exchange a couple of emails with Mike Fitzpatrick over at NOAO. He seems to think supporting the new “MacTel” machines shouldn’t be too hard.
Assuming there’s wide community interest… I don’t really see a problem with the Intel switch from the IRAF side.. It would have to be a new architecture to support native compilation
(I have my doubts about the performance/reliability of Rosetta running PPC
IRAF binaries), but it shouldn’t be a difficult port since we don’t use
Apple-specific frameworks.
Similarly, he later says that they’ll worry about it when they have an Intel/Mac machine, but that they’re current concerns are with getting it to compile using GCC 4.0 on Tiger, and if they should stick with f2c or go to g77.
My guess is that once it compiles on gcc 4, getting it to compile on Intel shouldn’t be too hard. Let’s hope there just isn’t too long a delay, as I’m sure someone will email me the day the first MacTel machine arrives asking if IRAF will run on it.
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