M1 processor

The new Mac computers have an M1 processor. The old Mac computers had an Intel processor. The new M1 processor is ARM based.

Rosetta 2

Rosetta 2 is a dynamic binary translator that allows binaries compiled for x86 to be translated for execution on an ARM proccessor.

arch

The arch command can be used to determine the CPU architecture that your computer is running on. It can also be used to run a program on a certain CPU architercure. Use the following command to run a program using Intel mode.

arch --x86_64 program

file

To determine if a binary is ARM or Intel you can use the file command.

file program

This will list the processor types that the binary supports. A universal binary can support both ARM and Intel.