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.