IMac screen looked like old PC

When I turned my iMac (with 10.8.4) on this morning, the screen was black background and white letters. Looked like the old IBM PC's where you had to type all kind of cryptic messages to get the darn thing to work. (Hooray for the Mac mouse!)
Yes, I read the stuff but it meant nothing to me and gave me no hint of the problem or what to do. I hit my on button on back of my monitor, held it down until it went off, waited a short time, started it up again and it was ok.
What was that!??? Will it happen again? Is it a sign of an impending problem? What can/should, I do, if anything?
Rose

Hi Rose,
The iMac had for some reason restarted and gone into single user mode, or safe mode...to know why would take a listing of exactly what the messages said that were on the screen. This could have been associated with a power outage or surge, but usually iMacs just restart when that happens.
If it is booted correctly now and working properly, just keep an eye on it and if it happens again, write down exactly what the messages say and post them here. Someone can then help diagonse what is happening.

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