Hello
When I run your command in my system (Win2K) it gave a directory
list and $cmd as 0.
Coming to your question when you execute a command using system
it returns a status of the execution of the command
for eg. system command is success then it returns "0"
or otherwise another number each number has its own meaning
in your case 65280 means the system command couldn't succeed in running...which Operating System
are you using to run this script?

Sridhar