[pjc50]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code_Control_System dates from 1972. The evolution appears to have been SCCS -> RCS -> CVS -> svn|hg|bzr|git (cambrian explosion) -> git (mass extinction).

[davidgerard]

I'd place the explosion around the time of CVS - but that was an explosion of proprietary VCSes. They didn't have to be as good as git, they just had to be better than CVS.

[pjc50]

Mm, although I felt that Rational Clearcase, MVS, and Visual Sourcesafe were mostly worse than CVS.

[pjmlp]

Given my experience on the enterprise, you can still use the present form.

Although I do like gated checkins in TFS without having to roll our own solutions.