Matlab Basics
To open Matlab, type matlab at the command line prompt.
The box on the right is your command window.
The upper-left box lists the variables currently in memory.
The lower-left box lists the commands you recently typed.

A Few Basic Commands
Type the following in your command window (or cut and paste). 

% The words after `%' are comments and explanations  
% They will not affect the commands and do not need to be typed in

A = [1 2 3]	% the variable list now shows a 1x3 matrix
Push the up arrow and add a semi-colon to the previous command. This tells Matlab to not echo the results to the command window. This is useful when operating on large matrices. 
A * 4		% basic math is very simple in Matlab-  just type the expression as you would write it

B = A * 4	% assignment to a new variable

C = [0:6; 0:6]	% creates a 2x7 matrix
		% a colon between two numbers will be a single count array
		% a semicolon inside the brackets indicates a new row

clear A B	% clears the variables 'A' and 'B' from the desktop
		% clear by itself will clear all variables

C = [0:.2:6; 0:.2:6]	% the rows in the matrix step by .2, instead of 1
			% a negative step can also be used

C(1,1)		% element in row 1, column 1
C(:,end-2:end)	% elements in all rows (1:2), columns 29 to 31