[SLUG] cat /boot/messages - WTF ?

["James Buchanan" <gnudev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm using Red Hat Linux 7.0.

I happened to be exploring my system and happened across "messages," a file
in the /boot directory.

I tried to cat this to my terminal and it came out as a garbled mess. What's
more, it even corrupted my shell! The prompt came out as garbage, similar to
what you get if you write a program to print out inititialised memory
locations.

How did it corrupt my shell and the shell prompt? Why is it filled with
garbage instead of readable ASCII text? Aren't you supposed to read these
files?

What is this /boot/messages file??

Thanks!
James