> > In the midst of my documentation research, I've done a little analysis on the life and times of this whimsical little phrase which first appeared in the "HOW TO GET STARTED" or basinf section of the Third Edition manual (a derivative of the original login(VII) page):
>
> > "When you type to UNIX, a gnome deep in the system is gathering your characters and saving them in a secret place."
>
>
> No sign of a login(VII) page in my "Program Generic PG-1C300 Issue 2"
> manual (no page, no entry in table of context, or permuted index).

By that point the quoted section was likely in the intro preceding the TOC and permuted index.  The login(VII) page only survived the first two editions, but portions of it were augmented into the secondary part of the introduction starting with the Third Edition manual.

https://gitlab.com/segaloco/v2man/-/blob/master/man7/login.7

vs

https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V3/man/man0/basinf

This basinf file persisted until somewhere between V6 and V7 when it was merged with intro.

- Matt G.