Tetris is built into your Mac

Filed under: Fun, Games, Macintosh, Apple, Freeware, Time-Wasters

Tetris is built into your Mac - Time Waster

by Jason Clarke Oct 7th 2008

If you're a Mac user, did you know that Tetris comes with your Mac? Have a look through your Applications folder - you won't find it there. Thanks to Cory over at TUAW, I now know that Tetris is an Easter Egg that can be found in the Terminal application.

Here are the steps to get the game going:

Open Terminal, which you can find in the Utilities sub-folder in your Applications folder
In the Terminal window, type "emacs", then press Enter
Wait for the Emacs screen to load (you'll see a bunch of welcome information for GNU Emacs)
Press the Escape key, then type "x" then type "tetrix" (no space between "x" and "tetris") and press Enter

If you've followed the instructions exactly, you should now be looking at a working game of Tetris. Controlling the blocks is done with your arrow keys.

Yes, this game of tetris isn't the best implementation you will find. It's very narrow, making it quite frustrating to play. But hey - it's free Tetris, and it's built in to your Mac!

Tags: Mac, Terminal, Tetris, time-waster, TUAW

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

sockatume said 11:20AM on 10-07-2008

It should work on regular old Unix and Linux using that editor, I think.

DuckPuppy said 11:24AM on 10-07-2008

This isn't so much a Mac thing as it is an Emacs thing - Tetris has been distributed in Emacs for a long time. So, this works in Linux and Windows too if Emacs is installed... it just so happens that Macs have Emacs installed by default.

Parker said 11:45AM on 10-07-2008

I found this a while back when it was posted on some other blog. There are a number of cool apps besides Tetris bundled with EMACS, a little Googling should reveal the whole list. The Tetris one in particular is great for the novelty factor, but I have a hard time actually playing it because the grid isn't square -- blocks are tall and narrow. Rotating pieces and lining them up properly can be tricky and annoying.

Robert H said 1:12PM on 10-07-2008

Sorry, not an easter egg. It's one of the standard games in Emacs

Mark said 1:23PM on 10-07-2008

It most certainly is an easter egg, but it's an egg in the Emacs terminal program as pointed out. (games don't typically come as part of a terminal program, and it's a hidden part of the program).

Robert H said 1:37PM on 10-07-2008

This is like saying Pivot Tables are an easter egg in Microsoft Excel. Emacs is not just a text editor. It's an email client, newsreader, programming IDE, and yes, it includes games. Also, the escape->x "trick" is the standard way to run a command in Emacs. The website for Emacs also shows this: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/

Jeffrey said 12:20AM on 10-08-2008

tetrix --> tetris

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