display hack

n. A program with the same approximate purpose as a kaleidoscope: to make
pretty pictures. Famous display hacks include munching squares , smoking
clover , the BSD Unix rain (6) program, worms (6) on miscellaneous Unixes,
and the X kaleid (1) program. Display hacks can also be implemented by
creating text files containing numerous escape sequences for interpretation
by a video terminal; one notable example displayed, on any VT100, a
Christmas tree with twinkling lights and a toy train circling its base. The
hack value of a display hack is proportional to the esthetic value of the
images times the cleverness of the algorithm divided by the size of the
code. Syn. psychedelicware.