(WAITS, via the Unix "fortune" progrAM) A quotation, item of trivia, joke, or maxim selected at random from a collection (the "cookie file") and printed to the user' s tty at login time or (less commonly) at logout time. There was a fortune progrAM on TOPS-20. [First progrAM?] [Jargon File] (1995-02-14)