origin of rc files

[utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!unix-wizards]

>From mo at LBL-UNIX Mon Nov  2 11:54:14 1981
I believe they originally came from the old V6 days when the various
source directories all contained "rc" files.  These were shell scripts
meant to ReCompile or ReCreate the entire world, hence the name "rc".
/etc/rc is named in a similar spirit because is basically puts the world
together when coming up multi-user.  While this is not ReCompiling, it
is,in a sense, ReCreating.
	-Mike