Introduction

Matlab is a computer program for people doing numerical computation. It began as a "MATrix LABoratory" program, intended to provide interactive access to the libraries Linpack and Eispack. These are carefully tested, high-quality programming packages for solving linear equations and eigenvalue problems. The goal of Matlab was to enable scientists to use matrix-based techniques to solve problems, without having to write programs in traditional languages like C and Fortran. More capabilities have been added as time has passed (especially graphics support for X windows).

Matlab has been called "the lingua franca for the exchange of software and algorithms," rapidly displacing Fortran from that position due to its interactive interface, reliable algorithmic foundation, fully extensible environment, and computational speed. Matlab is available for many different computer systems, but at Bowman Gray it is available on Unix systems only. A student edition, for Windows and Macintosh, is available from local bookstores at a very economical price.

This document is intended to help you get started with Matlab, running an X windows system and the Unix operating system. It is intended to be used, while sitting at a computer terminal running Matlab. We will not include output, and many of the commands will fail to convey the intended lesson without it.

We will assume that Unix is familar. No familarity with Linear Algebra is required, although some of what we do cannot be fully appreciated, without it.