This chapter is from the book
Fixing the Display
There will be times when a Bash session becomes unusable. Certain character sequences can lock your display, hide what you type, or change the characters being shown into strange symbols. This can happen, for example, when you're trying to display a binary file.
The reset command attempts to restore a Bash session to a safe, sane state.
If reset fails, you might also need to use stty sane to restore the session to a normal state.
The clear command clears the display and returns the cursor to the upper-left corner.