Filed under: Terminal Tips
Terminal Tips: Play Tetris in Terminal
One of these "eggs" is the ability to play Tetris in Terminal. Here's how to do it. First, open a new Terminal.app (/Applications/Utilities) window and type "emacs," then hit enter. After the screen loads, press "escape," then "x." Type "tetris" (lower-case) and hit enter. There you have it, a fully playable game of Tetris. Use the arrow keys to control the blocks.
Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW's Mac 101 and Terminal Tips sections.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Martin said 8:16AM on 10-01-2008
This is not an "Easter Egg" in the Terminal app. It is a game that is supplied (among many, many other) as an add-on for Emacs, the Unix editor that has been around for a very long time. It also is supplied with Aquamacs Emacs, the Aqua-based port of GnuEmacs. In that context it has much better graphics and is very much like the standalone Tetris.
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Nick said 8:30AM on 10-01-2008
Cool just tried it, it was weird, the shapes would change size when you moved that around.
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mungler said 8:26AM on 10-01-2008
Er... this is moronic. Yes, emacs has built-in games. This is NOT an easter egg, and in fact is nothing to do with Terminal.app itself - emacs just happens to run in a terminal.
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David Lowry said 8:30AM on 10-01-2008
I hate to point it out, but this isn't really a feature of Terminal, but of Emacs. It should work in any terminal program, e.g. xterm.
That being said, have fun enjoying the OS that masquerades as an editor.
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Guillaume Laurent said 8:42AM on 10-01-2008
I concur with martin and mungler. As a long time Unix user (15 years), reading this makes me cringe a bit. :-) How long before you find M-x doctor ? :-)
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teeth weasel said 8:53AM on 10-01-2008
This is a feature of emacs and not an easter egg nor a feature of the terminal.
Any developer who's used emacs pretty much ever has been aware of this. It's a tech demo I believe of the scripting capabilities in emacs.
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DrWho said 8:56AM on 10-01-2008
Do people still use emacs? Eats Memory And Crashes Systems. lol
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Penfold said 9:03AM on 10-01-2008
While you're at it, try ESC-x dunnet for a complete text adventure. As several folks have said, this really /isn't/ an Easter Egg as such.
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Martin said 9:07AM on 10-01-2008
Maybe TUAW should edit this post to avoid further embarrassment?
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Mathias said 9:54AM on 10-01-2008
This is embarrasing. Please edit your article to reflect that this is, as many others have pointed out, not an easter egg.
You might as well say “Hey, if you click on ‘About this Mac’ in the Apple menu, you’ll see an Apple logo in a window! OMFG!!!!!!111”
Ahem.
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Phil said 11:07PM on 10-01-2008
best tip ever
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Think Adrian said 10:01AM on 10-01-2008
I want to look smart in this forum, that's why I will tell you something that ten people before me has already told:
this is not an easter egg.
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nintendowii2006 said 10:06AM on 10-01-2008
Another neat trick is to do the same thing, only instead of typing "tetris", you type "doctor" (without the quotes). See what the psychotherapist has to say!
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silence said 11:26AM on 10-01-2008
Also nice how the article fails to tell people how to gracefully leave emacs. Then again... once you're in it, why would you ever want to leave it?
-jsl
@DrWho: Two things will survive a nuclear holocaust: cockroaches and emacs
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Plutokrat said 11:20AM on 10-01-2008
Wow, that was pretty lame...
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Geoff said 11:21AM on 10-01-2008
*facepalm*
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Lane said 11:27AM on 10-01-2008
You might also do people the courtesy of telling them how to _exit_ emacs too.
vi FTW!
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Nathan said 3:31AM on 10-02-2008
I read TUAW late at night after I get off of work. I was about to comment it but you beat me to it...
"vi FTW!"
At least I'm not the only one that prefers vi over emacs.
neko said 12:48PM on 10-01-2008
since everyone has already chewed you guys out about how this isn't an easter egg, i'll just tell you where a real easter egg is. in the Developer Tools examples, i think in the Quartz folder, but i don't quite remember, one of the samples is the blue and yellow ball that's hidden in every Pixar movie. and as we all know, Steve runs pixar too...
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Mark said 12:54PM on 10-01-2008
Let's not forget the fun of M-x yow and M-x psychoanalyze-pinhead.
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