UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

What operating system are you using? What shell?

I'm using bash on Linux (Fedora Core 2), but it also happens on Sun Solaris 8 with the tcsh shell.

Sorry if it came across as accusatory, that was definitely not my intent. I was merely asking whether the commands worked on your systems, because I thought it interesting that the same commands that fixed the problem on one system would fail on another. I apoligize for omitting my system details, but I have seen many experienced Unix users (and administrators) accidentally cat (or more) a binary file and react by restarting the terminal. It just seemed like a good idea to me to start a light-hearted discussion about an almost comical problem.

I've seen the problem on the xterm, gnome-terminal (which uses xterm), and dtterm (on Sun, which I think also uses the xterm). Interestingly, on konsole (the kde default terminal which also uses xterm) the terminal doesn't become ruined when cat'ing a binary.

I agree with your description about how it happens. Different binary files seem to affect different sets of characters. The gibberish I get, just like you described, depends on the binary file. Sometimes, with the more command, if you're careful to not page down, you can escape "more" and return with minimal or no gibberish.

I had the same problem and doing the 'reset' command from the affected terminal (tty1 in my case) did fix it.

tset or reset should do it in tty. In gnome terminal just select terminal->reset and clear
this works for me