ASCII Ball in Box Animation
Ruby 1.9, 115 characters

The movement logic is quite similar to Danko's answer.

This version has been tested on Linux only.

p=0
loop{u=(?|+?\s*18+"|
")*8
u[165-21*(7-p%14).abs-(17-p%34).abs]=?*
p+=1
puts"\e[2J",r=?++?-*18+?+,u,r
sleep 0.1}