unixkcd

unixkcd

Comic (April 1, 2010)

Title text: none

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This is the 3rd xkcd April Fools' Day comic, released by Randall on April 1, 2010. It was published on a Thursday, deviating from the standard release schedule to honor April Fools' Day. In fact, 2009 and 2017 are the only years in which Randall hasn't marked this day with a comic. You can view all April Fools' Day comics or learn more about them!

Explanation

This is one of 52 incomplete explanations: Explain the jokes and references in the #Undocumented commands section and the sections below it. Describe the website interface a bit, such as the links at the bottom. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

On April 1, 2010, Randall altered the xkcd.com website to mimic a Unix command-line interface. This interface is still available on uni.xkcd.com and the source code is available on GitHub. The comic 721: Flatland, released on March 31, 2010, was still up on April 1, 2010, but was unrelated to the Unix interface. The terminal only lists a few available commands, but most commands are undocumented.

Documented commands

Command	Response	Explanation
next	(shows the next comic)	If the latest comic number is given, shows the error Time travel mode not enabled. See enable time travel below.
prev	(shows the previous comic)
first	(shows the first comic)
last	(shows the last comic)
display [number]	(shows the comic with the specified number)	Trying to display comic 404: Not Found will result in an endless loading attempt. Trying to display comic 1350: Lorenz results in a normally unseen comic strip where Cueball has computer issues. someone in the other room remarks that computes are just organized sand, and Cueball responds with "Maybe i should turn this one *back* into sand."
random	(shows a random comic)
ls	(shows the content of the current directory)
dir
cat [filename]	(shows the content of the file)	See also cat below.
cd [directory]	(changes to the specified directory)

Undocumented commands

Command	Response	Explanation
:(){:|:&};:	[...] (repeats indefinitely)	This command, otherwise known as a shell fork bomb will make the terminal display the [...] loading dots indefinitely, as though it crashed.
a/s/l or asl		A/S/L is not a Unix command, but an acronym of Age/Sex/Location in this case. The following replies are possible:
	2/AMD64/Server Rack	Answered as if the server replied. sex refered as AMD
	328/M/Transylvania	Answered by Dracula.
	6/M/Battle School	Answered by Ender Wiggin or another boy from battle school.
	48/M/The White House	Answered by Barack Obama or another male of the same age in the White House.
	7/F/Rapture	Answered by a Little Sister from BioShock.
	Exactly your age/A gender you're attracted to/Far far away.	Requests for A/S/L are often not answered truthfully, but crafted to suit the one asking the question.
	7,831/F/Lothlórien	Answered by Galadriel or another elf. Lothlorien is the region of Middle Earth where a particular group of elves live, and Galadriel is by far the most significant female elf from this (or possibly any) part of the popular stories.
	42/M/FBI Field Office	Answered by an FBI agent, referencing the old trope that all girls on the internet are FBI agents impersonating them.
apt-get	This APT has Super Cow Powers.	The apt-get command is part of the Debian package manager APT. This reply is one of the built-in Easter eggs.
apt-get moo	(__) (oo) /------\/ / | || * /\---/\ ~~ ~~ ...."Have you mooed today?"...	Displays an ASCII drawing of a cow.
bash	You bash your head against the wall. It's not very effective.	Bash is a shell for POSIX-based systems. This also references early text-based adventure games where you need to type the action needed to proceed, which could result in unintended consequences. For example, if you typed in something like "ax in chest", the game may stab the axe into your character's torso instead of opening a crate. The line 'it's not very effective' may be a reference to Pokemon, where an attack can deal differing amounts of damage depending on effectiveness.
cat [number]/alt.txt	(displays the title text of the specified comic)
cat (without a filename or with an invalid filename)	You're a kitty!	A reference to 231: Cat Proximity.
cheat	(opens the xkcd Store)
buy stuff
clear	(clears the screen)
curl	(creates an iframe to the URL specified)
date	March 32nd	Instead of April 1st, which is not a real date.[citation needed]
display title text	display: unable to open image "title": No such file or directory.	Displayed in red text.
echo	Echo ... echo ... echo ...	echo is a command used to print text to the terminal.
ed	You are not a diety	ed is a very simple text editor. It is usually not considered very user-friendly. See also vi and emacs.
emacs	You should use Vim.	A reference to 378: Real Programmers.
enable time travel	TARDIS error: Time Lord missing	A Doctor Who reference. See also the next command.
exit	(ends the terminal session)
quit
logout
find kitten	(showed the robotfindskitten game)	The link to the Flash version no longer works, but an HTML version is available here.
find	What do you want to find? Kitten would be nice.
finger	Mmmmmm...	finger USER is used on UNIX-like systems to get information about another USER. Here, Randall is taking advantage of its suggestive name, with 'finger' referring to an action where one sticks their finger in another's anus, usually for sexual pleasure.
fuck	I have a headache.	Though the command may have been intended as a profanity, it is interpreted as if a request for sexual intercourse. A stereotypical (film-friendly) response to an expected but unwanted 'bedtime request' from an overamorous bed-partner is to claim to have a headache.
goto [any]	(shows comic 292: goto and asks if you meant display instead.)
go back	You cannot go back.
go down	On our first date?
Hello Joshua	How about a nice game of Global Thermonuclear War?	A reference to the WarGames movie.
hello	Hello.	A second reply Why hello there! is coded, but it is never used.
help	That would be cheating!
halp
hi	Hi.
hint	We offer some nice polos.	Randomly replies with one of four options.
	This terminal will remain available at xkcd.com/unixkcd/
	Use the source, Luke!
	There are cheat codes.
i read the source code	<3
irc [nick]	(starts an IRC session on the xkcd channel on irc.foonetic.net)
write [nick]
kill	Terminator deployed to 1984.	A reference to the Terminator movie. In Bash, kill is used to end a process.
latest	(displays the latest comic)
locate [filename]		is normally used to locate a file in a directory. It will give humorous results when searching for ninja, keys, joke, problem and raptor.
lpr	PC LOAD LETTER	lpr is a command to print documents. PC_LOAD_LETTER is a printer error.
make love	I put on my robe and wizard hat.	A reference to this roleplay chat transcript (NSFW), which was also mentioned in 442: xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel. make love is a standard Unix joke, because the reply is make: don't know how to make love.
make me a sandwich	What? Make it yourself.	A reference to 149: Sandwich.
man [command]	(shows unhelpful information about the command)	Only last, help, next, cat have unique responses, all others show a generic "Oh, I\'m sure you can figure it out."
moo	moo
more	Oh, yes! More! More!	The more command is used to paginate output.
nano	Seriously? Why don't you just use Notepad.exe? Or MS Paint?	Nano is another text editor for Unix systems (see vi and emacs).
ping	There is another submarine three miles ahead, bearing 225, forty fathoms down.	The ping command is used to measure round trip times to a destination. The name of the command comes from sonar technology. A submarine using sonar may 'ping' to illuminate nearby submarines on radar.
pwd	You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.	The pwd command prints the current working directory (see look). The output is a reference to Colossal Cave Adventure.
reddit [number]	(shows the Reddit voting bar for the specified comic)	If no number is specified, shows xkcd.
rm [filename]	(removes a file)
rm -r	(removes a directory)
serenity	You can't take the sky from me.	This is a line from the Balad of Serenity from the Firefly TV series. Serenity is also the name of an Operating System (that Randall probably wasn't thinking of): SerenityOS.
shutdown	Must be root.	See also sudo poweroff.
poweroff
ssh	ssh, this is a library.	ssh is the command to start a secure shell, but it also resembles the "Shh" sound.
su	God mode activated. Remember, with great power comes great ... aw, screw it, go have fun.	su is a command for logging as an upper user, which gives you full and potentially dangerous access to the system. On some systems, "with great power comes great responsibility" is also part of a message that is printed the first time sudo is used.
sudo [command]	(executes the command with root privileges)
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade	You are already running [OS].
sudo apt-get moo	Have you mooed today?	(apt-get Easter egg).
sudo apt-get update	Reading package lists... Done	Refreshes the package list so the system knows which updates are available.
sudo apt-get upgrade	(shows a link to A Better Browser on Internet Explorer and Firefox (< v3). On all other browsers, it says This looks pretty good to me.
sudo make me a sandwich	Okay	Behaves like 149: Sandwich.
sudo !!	(will sudo the last command)
sudo poweroff	(shuts down the system)
sudo shutdown
sudo reboot	(restarts the system)
sudo restart
sudo rm -rf /	(breaks all commands until the page is reloaded)	If this command is run in Linux, then it will simply delete everything in the distro it is run on.
sudo sudo	An internal error occurred: RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded	in red text.
time travel	(shows 630: Time Travel)
top	It's up there --^	The top command shows a table of processes. Here it is taken literally.
uname	Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator	uname on Unix lists system information. The Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator is an explosive device created by Marvin the Martian in the Looney Tunes series.
unixkcd	(opens a new terminal window)
use the force luke	I believe you mean source.	A reference to the Force in the Star Wars franchise.
use the source luke	I'm not luke, you're luke!	An old programmers' joke.
vi	You should use emacs.	A reference to 378: Real Programmers.
vim
wget [URL]	(shows the content of the specified URL)	wget is a command on Unix to download the content and not show it.
who	Doctor Who?	Another Doctor Who reference. The who command on Unix lists the logged-in users.
Whoami	You are Richard Stallman.	The whoami command lists the name of the current user. Richard Stallman is the creator of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation.
xkcd	Yes?
xyzzy	Nothing happens.	xyzzy is a magic word, originally used in the game Colossal Cave Adventure.
your gay	Keep your hands off it!
!!	(reruns the previous command after stating the command)

Game commands

There are also some other commands borrowed from a Zork like text-based adventure game.

Command	Response	Explanation
look	(describes your current surroundings)
go [direction]	(moves you in the specified direction)	Going West repeatedly will list the refrain from the song Go West.
light lamp	(lights your lamp)	You will be killed by a grue if you don't light your lamp when going south.
sleep [seconds]	(sleeps for the specified time)	Without specifying, the nap is 5 seconds.

Konami code

The image used as the background after using the Konami code five times.

The terminal also responds to the Konami code Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A. Entering this code repeatedly will, in order:

1. Transform all characters to uppercase
2. Add a grey text shadow
3. Add an orange text-shadow
4. Shake the screen
5. Add a background image of Richard Stallman from 345: 1337: Part 5.

Transcript

This is one of 27 incomplete transcripts: Describe the initial interface fully. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[The screen is black.]

[The text is white, monospaced, and in the top left, similar to that of a computer terminal.]

[The terminal automatically runs the command:]

display

[The most recent XKCD comic appears below the current line.]

[The terminal runs the command:]

cat welcome.txt

Terminal: Welcome to the unixkcd console.

Terminal: To navigate the comics, enter "next", "prev", "first", "last", "display", or "random".

Terminal: Use "ls", "cat", and "cd" to navigate the filesystem.

[A blinking text cursor appears on the next line, and you can type in commands to make the terminal do stuff.]

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Discussion

Red link... — The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 ^{talk stalk} 10:45, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

has skmone made an actual CLI based on these commands? 172.69.214.224 02:12, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

The Konami Code isn't working for me, does anyone else have this problem? Psychoticpotato (talk) 18:50, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Should we consider this a comic? I don't know how to think about it. Blue Eyes wasn't a comic but we still consider it as one. --FaviFake (talk) 09:31, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

The moo still works after sudo rm -rf / (--no-preserve-root) 172.68.22.41 (talk) 05:07, 16 April 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Entering the Konami code ~10^36^100^69 times makes the sun turn into a black hole. It might be unrelated to me doing it, but who's going to prove me wrong? GruefromZork (talk) 13:19, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

It looks like someone was writing the a/s/l for Galadriel and got cut off? I don't know enough about LOTR to try and fix that, but someone should. R128 (talk) 01:05, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Fixed the broken wikilink (typo?) and fixed up/continued the abbreviated bit that came after, as I saw fit.

Did not note, in that, that the age given is what Galadriel would have given around 500 years before the events of the Hobbit/LOTR stories (if I've got that right, myself). But with the lack of other obvious 'F' elves, I'm happier to just assume it's her reply from elsewhen rather than a 'current' message from any unnamed/barely-mentioned fellow elfin born half a millenium after her. (Arwen was only a couple of millenia old, and came from Rivendell as well. And I'd honestly be hard pressed to recall any other female LOTR elf that featured in the prose, and not just a box in the geneology diagrams from the appendices. The real Tolkien scholars/book-memorisers could have other ideas, of course. Or identify which 'prequel' tales might have inspired this instance.) 82.132.245.109 04:40, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
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