Normally "X11" with uppercase X ; else consult the AALib manual. you can pass "commandline options" of AALib here, after "X11" or whichever other thing you chose instead of "X11". grid(rows columns 1): converts a greyscale image to an ascii image and possibly displays it. note that the image is typically downscaled by a factor of 2 by aalib itself. grid(rows columns 2): the inverse of "dump". Both together in a loop allow to post-process aalib's buffer before displaying. Goes well with "draw", "autodraw". the first channel is for the ascii codes and the second channel is for the attributes (colour, blink). \$1=y \$2=x \$3=attr \$4=text where text is a symbol and the rest are ints. "autodraw 1" does a "draw" after each incoming grid. "autodraw 0" does not. eventually you need to use this if you use "autodraw 0". produces a Dim[y, x, 2] grid whose two channels are ascii character codes and character attributes. result of 'dump'