15 Mar
2018
15 Mar
'18
4:29 p.m.
One of the things that's always fascinated me about Unix is the community
aspect; in particular, I imagine that in the early days when machines were
multiplexed among many simultaneous users, I wonder whether there was a
greater sense of knowing what others were up to, working on, or generally
doing.
I think of the /etc/motd file as being a part of this. It is, in some very
real sense, a way to announce things to the entire user community.
So what are its origins? Where did it first appear? I haven't dug into
this, but I imagine it was at Berkeley. What was it used for early on at
individual sites?
- Dan C.