MESA/Boogie began in the late 1960s San Francisco with Randall Smith who developed a novel “cascading” tube preamp circuit housed in a compact high power combo amplifier (by modding Fender Princetons). Carlos Santana tried out this little high gain amp and concluded “This thing really Boogies!” - and so the amp was named. After modding 200 of these Princeton amps by 1971 Smith had to start making his own amps in his garage workshop to meet the growing demand for the Mark I Boogie model. In 1980 MESA introduced the Mark II Boogie - the first channel switching amplifier. 1986 saw the introduction of the Mark III with its clean, crunch and lead modes, and in 1989 the 85W Mark IV was released. The early 1990s saw the dual & triple rectifiers, and since then many more designs that have confirmed MESA Engineering's position as a leader in tube amplifier technology.

Source: MESA/Boogie catalogs 1979 - 1995

Source: MESA/BOOGIE web page (15 May 2018)