OMG Tetris?! and Other Emacs Fun

If any Unix or Linux geniuses pop in they’re gonna call me a n00b and laugh at me, but oh well. I will take their humiliating laughter and announce to the world that after living with my OS X iMac for nearly two years I just now discovered that you can play a version of Tetris through the Terminal!

I don’t know how many of the average Mac users are familiar with the Terminal. Of my friends who also use Macs, none have really used it. I’ve only used the Terminal to circumvent Grab’s “I’m not gonna let you screencap a DVD” roadblock, and my brother used it to run some data recovery program. If you, Dear Reader, likewise have never used the Terminal, below is a brief explanation.

Terminal is a command line. Back in the day, people used to have to type in word commands to their computers. Then Xerox and Apple changed the world by developing an operating system that would let you just click on pictures (“icons”) to have the computer do stuff, and lo! every Tom, Dick, and Maria was able to use a computer. As this system was widely adopted, the command line faded from the memory of people like me, who use computers mainly for using the internet, playing music, and writing essays. (Oh, and coloring in silly fanart, ^_^.) But then Apple built its OS X on Unix, and since I was already a video game geek, I decided to take a dive into computer geekdom and learn a little bit about how to use the Terminal. If you’re inspired to get into this, I highly recommend you get David Pogue’s OS X: The Missing Manual. It is an awesome book that anyone looking to unlock all the power of their Mac should own. Get the one for your version of OS X today! *Sparkling smile*

Anyway, back to Tetris. My brother found this page on the Easter Egg Archive that explains how to play Tetris on the Terminal. To summarize, once you’ve opened the Terminal, type “emacs” then press “enter/return”, then simultaneously press “esc” and “x” (which will give you a command line at the bottom of the Terminal screen), then type “tetris”, hit “enter” and enjoy!

As you can see from the picture, the pieces don’t have individual squares drawn on so it takes some getting used to. I wasn’t doing particularly well on this try…

As you can read on the Easter Egg Archives page, there are other games you can play through Emacs in the Terminal. I know it’s really old, but I like the psychotherapist Eliza. To “play” this, do the same as for Tetris, just type “doctor” instead of “Tetris.” I thought my first conversation with her was funny, so here are some screencaps. If you just hit “enter” without typing anything she’ll ask another question, as is the case with the last two sentences of the first session I screencapped. Otherwise, every other sentence beginning with the very first one is the emacs psychiatrist “talking,” and the other sentences are what I typed in.

The last two sentences are both from the psychotherapist.

Now me being the huge geek that I am, I thought, “What if I did a little role playing here?” (Not that I actually fell down the stairs.) Inspired by my recent fanart, I decided to “talk” to Eliza as Sephiroth, seen in the second session screencapped below (both sessions take up two pictures each).

If I do say so myself: *L O Freakin’ L!*

How about you, O World? Have you had a really funny session with Eliza, the emacs psychotherapist?