> Installation went well, at it works fine. Nevertheless the cursor keys
> don't seem to work. Just get ^[[D instead of cursor left.
Well that just means that readline support is not enabled in your lisp.
Either compile maxima with a different lisp or use rlwrap.
I guess it is easier to install rlwrap and start maxima with the command
rmaxima to get command line editing ...
Sorry but I don't know any specifics about MACs.
HTH,
Harald