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fat binary

   Also found in: Wikipedia 0.03 sec.

Software that is distributed in two formats in order to ease transition to a new hardware architecture. For example, when Apple switched from Motorola 68K CPUs to PowerPC (PPC) chips in 1994, it provided a fat binary format containing both 68K and PPC machine languages. Again in 2006 when Apple switched from PPC to Intel chips, it created a PPC/Intel fat binary, dubbed the "universal binary."


(operating system)fat binary - An executable file containing code for more than one CPU. The correct code is selected automatically at run time. This is convenient for distributing software and sharing it between multiple platforms.

NEXTSTEP supports fat binaries, e.g. for Motorola 68000, Intel 80486 and SPARC ("triple fat"). Mac OS supports fat binaries for both 680x0 and PowerPC native code.


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Spring Cleaning's eight utilities search a user's hard drive to safely uninstall old applications, remove duplicate and unused fonts, find invalid alias files, trim fat binary applications, find orphaned help files, and clean out users' Preferences folders.
and runs on 680x0 and Power Macintosh and the single software package will be shipped as a fat binary in the late summer.
For maximum flexibility, AddDepth offers users the choice of fat binary or smart installation.
 
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