Display messd up with weird characters in Gentoo after `cat` a binary file

I ran cat /etc/localtime to see the contents of /etc/localtime - however it's a binary file, so my console became like this:

You may notice the red text in screenshot is "LiveCD"; commands can be executed correctly, but they display in a weird way. I'm in the middle of an installation process, so I'd prefer to avoid rebooting. How can I return my display to normal?

UPDATE: after running make menuconfig to enter a GUI and quitting, it's back to normal.

yeah, you've output (probably) binary to the console, and its faffed up the mapping.

In situations like this, the command you want is reset.

hit return (so you know you have a blank line), type in reset and hit return again. :-D

An alternative to the reset command is to output the ASCII SI (shift in) character, decimal value 15. This can be entered with Ctrl-O, and should work on any (even ancient) unix in case it laks the reset command.

prompt>
prompt>echo ^V^O

Try running the reset command. If hitting return before and after the reset command doesn't work, try control-J.

Also, Alt-F2 to switch to an alternate terminal can bypass the issue temporarily.