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Daminvar
September 4th, 2008, 09:47 PM
I found a strange glitch that happens when you try to "execute" a PDF file. (I incorrectly thought that running a file from the terminal would open the file in the default player.) Anyway, when I ran it by changing to the file's directory and running it by typing...

./file_name.pdf

...I got a bunch of glitchy text running down my screen. After 5 minutes or so, it stopped, but it messed up all of the characters in the terminal. I thought it looked pretty neat, so I took a screenshot

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/5927/screenshotseadiskdjj1.png

(This is me playing a MUD in the terminal with glitchy text)

Once I closed the terminal and opened it again, the text was back to normal. I don't really know why it happened, and it didn't seem to cause any damage, so I don't really care all that much. If you find that it works for you, then I guess you could have some fun with it.

lian1238
September 4th, 2008, 10:08 PM
I've seen this effect before, but don't remember how I got it. To reproduce this, print the ASCII character 16 for this "effect" and 17 for normal mode.

In C++:
cout << '\16'; // switch to 'drawing' mode
// do some ASCII drawing here!
cout << '\17'; // switch to normal text mode:)

LaRoza
September 4th, 2008, 10:13 PM
That will happen when you try to view a binary file (or it can happen with improper ncurses programming).

Try it, cat a binary file ;)

Daveski
September 4th, 2008, 11:53 PM
ctrl-j
type reset then press return
ctrl-j again

This will reset a terminal.

-grubby
September 5th, 2008, 12:14 AM
Try it, cat a binary file ;)


cat /bin/cat

Fun stuff