I think it was out there, by the 90s, but harder to procure. Supply houses probably had it, but consumer-based outlets didn't. Kind of like the Electrical Combination Screwdrivers. The manufacturers started using the electrical combination screw heads, (a combination of the Canadian Roberts Square Drive, and an American flat blade) almost three decades ago. But it was only recently that anyone thought to produce screw drivers that match the screw heads. And I still run into journeyman electricians who don't know what the combination head is, or that there are special drivers for it.
It's possible but I was doing a lot work in petro-chemical for many of the major producers and I'm sure that they would have been spec'ing it if it was any where near common. Including remote stations that we used process gas for controllers and recorders.
I think that would be Robertson Square Drive.
Glad someone said it. My family owned a plumbing business when I was growing up in the 1970's and 80's, and I was the unpaid plumber's helper, many times. I remember being taught to wrap fittings of all size, and the tape was always, always, always... white. I don't remember seeing my first yellow tape until the 1990's, not that it didn't exist, but it certainly wasn't on my radar.
