In this post, the author traces the history of Version Control Systems (VCS) leading up to the creation of Git. They discuss the early methods of managing versions, where developers manually stored copies of their files, and then move on to the introduction of the first formal VCS, SCCS, which pioneered automatic revision tracking. The author also highlights the unique feature of SCCS, which stored only the changes as “deltas” instead of full duplicates of the file. They then discuss the introduction of RCS, CVS, and other proprietary VCS in the mid-1990s. Lastly, they mention the arrival of BitKeeper, which played a significant role in the Git story. The post concludes with the story of how Linus Torvalds created Git after facing limitations with other VCS options.
https://osshistory.org/p/the-world-before-git