Older OS - History

Sorry for the nerd post.

The post on the main page the other day showing all of the older BlackBerry phones through the years had me wondering about the actual OS through the years. There is hardly anything about what the OS looked like before about 4.2 or so. I can't find anything online aside from a screenshot or two of a 5000 or 6000 model. For someone who had an 8700 as their first phone I would be interested to know what things were like "in the stone age."

For instance, I've looked around and I can't even find what the version numbers were. I was able to figure out the 6000 models ran on "3.x" but that was about it. What were the differences and so forth? Any info would be cool to know. And if Kevin or Blaize or someone like that read--I think it would make for a cool article.