LabVIEW on the Mac is alive and well – Macworld Expo 2008

Download: iPod

Download VideoNational Instruments had a very small booth at Macworld Expo this year. They were there nonetheless and I asked them a few questions about the current state of LabVIEW on the Mac. I also wanted to find out how, and if, a current Windows user like myself could use a Mac exclusively and still manage to satisfy Windows based LabVIEW project clients. According to Mike Neil, LabVIEW product manager, you can have your cake, er… Mac and eat it too. With the use of virtual machines (vmware fusion, parallels) or bootcamp (which boots the whole machine into Windows), you can now run your windows development environment on a Mac and satisfy any Windows project requirements. Which leaves me asking myself, why am I still on a PC?

Are you working with LabVIEW on the Mac? Tell us about your experiences in the comments.

Paul F. Sullivan says:

January 25, 2008 at 11:55 am

Polaroid, my former employer, used Macs to test the PDC2000 camera. I was responsible for much of that programming. I started SULLutions in ‘96 with only a Mac. Most of my clients, other than Polaroid’s electronic camera department, were on Windows machines. I’d do the development and debugging in my office, taking care to use the default fonts, then move the code to their machines for final test. The biggest problem was working with stubs to substitute for instruments I didn’t have on my system, but I would have had the same problem developing on a Windows machine. I certainly couldn’t afford to duplicate all my clients’ hardware in my office. IMAQ Vision has been the biggest problem. I now have a Windows machine that I use for testing new software before delivering it. That will move to my new Mac when I get it in the next couple of weeks. Less hardware, but it won’t avoid the hassle of maintaining a Windows machine. :-( At least I don’t have to use it every day. :-)
blog.chadbailey.net » Blog Archive » Why not me? says:

January 25, 2008 at 2:06 pm

[...] out NI had a booth at MacWorld this year. I would have sacrificed a few toes to make it to the Mac promised land, but alas, it was not meant [...]
Robert Berger says:

January 28, 2008 at 11:40 am

I would like to get back on the MAC. Can some brave soul try Virtualization software on a MACBOOKPRO and report results running LabVIEW?

Thank you for the update
Tomi Maila says:

January 28, 2008 at 2:14 pm

I’m not using a Mac, but I’ve considered the transition. Recently I wrote a small LabVIEW game as a Christmas gift for ExpressionFlow readers. I only used very basic functionality. However the game didn’t work on mac without modifications. Why? Because LabVIEW for Mac didn’t support playing audio files. It was a Windows only functionality. Come on! Sound support is Windows only functionality! No way. What can I say?
Michael Aivaliotis says:

January 30, 2008 at 1:29 am

Robert, I will be doing that on a Macbook in about 2 months. Stay tuned for the video.
DARwIn development on Macs with LabVIEW at VI Shots says:

May 21, 2008 at 10:49 pm

[...] LabVIEW on the Mac is alive and well [...]
Gabriella says:

June 8, 2009 at 12:47 pm

Two of my goldfish died last week. They were just active and happy last week. It

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