A MAD-X Primer

The purpose of this note is to serve as an introduction to MAD-X for the novice user. It describes the basic building elements and the most important commands to define a machine and perform the most important calculations. It cannot replace a reference manual for the more advanced and demanding use of MAD-X, but should help starting up the design of a new accelerator lattice and to understand existing MAD-X input. This note is a writeup of a presentation given at a course on optics design at the CERN Accelerator School at DESY Zeuthen, 2003.