Introduction to MATLAB

• MATLAB (short for Matrix Laboratory) is a package designed for both practical computations and theoretical investigations of numerical methods and computation.
• MATLAB is actually based on a complex suite of C programs that implement certain "primitive" subroutine operations, plus an interface driver routine which converts input "English-like" and mathematical expressions into the correct subroutine calls.

  Figure 1: MATLAB Desktop.

  
• Most MATLAB toolbox commands and functions are really just text files containing sequences of other MATLAB commands and functions. Such files are commonly called m-files.
• The commands and functions stored in an m-file are then executed
  whenever the user appropriately enters the corresponding file name.
• Enter the following commands in the MATLAB Command Window prompt
  

  
  
  You should have a dialogue as in the following figure