Fun Hacks For Mac Terminal 2018

Terminal is one of the utilities that is commonly found on UNIX-based computer such as Linux and Mac OS. It is where users can type commands asking the computer to perform certain tasks. Something like a DOS environment in Windows. Kinda geeky, isn’t it?

  • Terminal app can be daunting at first, but it’s really the best way to hack into your Mac’s configurations and preferences to customize things to work for you rather than against you.
  • First, you need to open the terminal window. Click the search icon in the top right of your screen (shown as a magnifying glass), enter terminal and click on the only result in the 'Applications' section.
  • Unix is the core of OS X, but to get at it you need the command-line interface, which terrifies a lot of people. This hack demystifies the command line by showing you the fun that’s baked in!
Fun hacks for mac terminal 2018 movie

Dec 04, 2001  Hyo all, Does anybody have any fun hacks I can play with in Terminal? I'm new to the Unix-style world which (for me) makes me a newbie in all kinds of SSH or whatever you guys call it. 18 Mac Hacks That Will Make You A MacBook Pro. Which recent PC-to-Mac converts may be missing. BuzzFeed Home Sitemap© 2018 BuzzFeed, Inc.

That’s why everyday computer users tend to avoid Terminal, even if they have a helpful guide for Mac Terminal beginners. People say that tinkering with the Terminal is not for the faint hearted. Because something could – and possibly would – go wrong.

But actually, there are fun things that we can do using the Terminal’s command line. Here are few of the simple ones.

1. Play the Old (Classics) Games

Mac OS X comes with GNU Emacs, part of GNU operating system, which can be accessed via Terminal. There are some old, classic games hidden there. They are far from beautiful if you compare them with all the graphically-intense ones that we have today. But to fill in some spare times, these ‘uglies’ will do just fine.
To access them, type in (or better yet, copy and paste) this command into the Terminal to access the GNU Emacs:

emacs

Click Enter, then continue with the key combination of “Esc + x”. Type in one of these game’s names to start playing:

5×5
blackbox
dunnet
gomoku
hanoi
landmark
mpuz
pong
snake
solitaire
tetris

I know some of them well (the last four on the list) while other names did not exist in my dictionary until just now. I tried to play them all but without any information or how-to’s, it’s a tough effort to carry out.

If you want to quit the game, use the key combination “Ctrl + x” followed by “Ctrl + c”

2. Watch the text-based episode of StarWars IV

I used to think that George Lucas skipped his early Math classes since he started the Star Wars sagas with number IV. Yet, I’m always a big fan of Luke and Leia.

If you feel like being nostalgic (and have plenty of free time to spare), why don’t you connect to the net, open the terminal and type in:

telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

That’s how far a REAL fan will go. (And if you are lucky enough to have IPv6, you’ll get more scenes and – drum roll, please – color!)

3. Talking Terminal

Still have so much time to spare but no one to spare the time with? You could have the terminal talking to keep you company.

Just type in:

say {Fill in your text here}

Fill in any text in the area provided above and Terminal will speak it out for you.

4. Meet the Doctor

Best Mac Terminal Hacks

After going as far as letting the talking Terminal accompany you during your lonely hours, you feel worried about your mental health and thinking about going to a mental therapist.

Well, look no further. Emacs also hides a virtual psychologist. To consult it with your problems, follow the above steps on number 1, but instead of typing in the name of the game, you type “doctor” (sans quote).

I guarantee that you would need a real psychotherapist after consulting with this one.

Terminal Mac Hacks

As a final note, I think I should mention that I tried these fun things on my Mac. But since everything described here is merely command lines, these commands should also work fine on Linux machines.

For a lot more, check out our Mac Terminal commands cheat sheetThe Mac Terminal Commands Cheat SheetThe Mac Terminal Commands Cheat SheetOur mega cheat sheet of Mac terminal commands provides a great reference for all the important commands you should know.Read More.

Hacks For Mac Terminal

Explore more about: Star Wars, Tetris.

Fun Hacks For Mac Terminal 2018

  1. If you do: sudo apt install oneko

    it will install an app which makes cats chase your cursor

    i dont know how to get them off though :(

  2. how do i get the doctor to respond when i typed ret ret. or RET RET. or RETRET or retret it did not work

    • Press enter twice

  3. I can't figure out the games or the docter, what's a sans quote does it make a difference?

    • after typing 'emacs' hit Esc and then X... a little blue prompt will pop up at the bottom of the 'emacs' screen in this prompt type 'Solitaire'

  4. vaya mierda, me ha decepcionado esta pagina

    BASURA??

    SIIIIII

  5. Amazing article - learnt a lot here.
    Just the one thing, I'm not abel tot use the 'doctor' function and it's really bugging me!

    Just to recap on that one (and check I've got the process correct), it's:
    - emacs [Enter]
    - Esc + x keys
    - *doctor*

    ...right?

    Thanks!

    • You only need to type doctor, not *doctor*

  6. i wish someone would give instruction on the controls of some of the games. Solitaire for instants i have figure out how to jump left and right but i can't seem to find how to jump up and down

  7. make your terminal sing a song: osascript 'say 'your text here' using 'cellos' ' this makes the terminal the text you wrote between the quotation marks as a song using the cellos voice

    • Since Snow Leopard or before, you can just use $ say -v 'cellos' 'your text here'.

  8. The Star Wars ascii movie, or at least most of it, is available with any web browser at:
    asciimation.co.nz/

    Neil

  9. I've been searching for a while for cool terminal stuff.

    I think you can try:

    curl dict://dict.org/d:(word you want)
    no brackets, of course. I think it gives a dictionary definition.

    I think it gives you the list for the emacs thing when you put this:
    ls /usr/share/emacs/22.1/lisp/play

  10. I believe that the Mac OS X commands 'say' and 'doctor' will not always work on other Unix-like systems.

    The same goes for the Emacs tip--but Emacs is far more likely to be available on most other Unix-based systems anyway.

  11. Note that this works perfectly well in Windows as well.

    Go into DOS (WindowsKey+R - Type 'cmd') and just write the telnet link. :D

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