Can Octave run Matlab code that contains DLL files?

[Steve C. Thompson]

Dear Group,

I'm trying to get some Matlab code running in Octave.
Specifically,

  http://www.iterativesolutions.com/Matlab.htm ,

which has a good library of channel codecs.  (If you know of
turbo, convolutional, etc., codecs that run in Octave, please
drop me a message).  Some of the intensive routines are MEXified
resulting in a directory of .dll files.  Can Octave run such a
thing?  I've heard people discussing MEX support, but I'm not
entirely sure what that means.  Does it mean the developmental
version of Octave (2.9.9) will run this code?  I'm running the
older:

  octave --version
  GNU Octave, version 2.1.73 (i486-pc-linux-gnu)

Thanks!

Steve