MATLAB is a numerical computing environment and fourth generation programming language. Maintained by The MathWorks, MATLAB allows easy matrix manipulation, plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creation of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs in other languages. Although it is numeric only, an optional toolbox uses the MuPAD symbolic engine, allowing access to computer algebra capabilities.

An additional package, Simulink, adds graphical multidomain simulation and Model-Based Design for dynamic and embedded systems. In 2004, MathWorks claimed that MATLAB was used by more than one million people across industry and the academic world. MATLAB (meaning "matrix laboratory") was invented in the late 1970s by Cleve Moler, then chairman of the computer science department at the University of New Mexico.

He designed it to give his students access to LINPACK and EISPACK without having to learn Fortran. It soon spread to other universities and found a strong audience within the applied mathematics community. Jack Little, an engineer, was exposed to it during a visit Moler made to Stanford University in 1983.

Recognizing its commercial potential, he joined with Moler and Steve Bangert. They rewrote MATLAB in C and founded The MathWorks in 1984 to continue its development. These rewritten libraries were known as JACKPAC.[citation needed] In 2000, MATLAB was rewritten to use a newer set of libraries for matrix manipulation, LAPACK.

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