The "translate" command is non-existent now.  It was used in the
previous version of matlab to convert Fortran data files into the matlab
format.

It is not needed anymore, though.  It is possible to load regular text
(ASCII) files into matlab by using the "load" command.  The "load"
command deals only with ASCII files, and doesn't work with unformatted
fortran data files.  (The same command is also used to read the matlab
binary files, but this is irrelevant at this point).

To find out how to use the load command, and how your file should be
formatted, select the option:

      8. How to read variables from a TEXT FILE


Note for programmers: The source code for functions that load and save
the binary matlab files are available in the directory /mit/matlab/src.
They are called loadmat.c and savemat.c, respectively.