Lot longer than 15 years. There were ISA SCSI controllers that had micro-controllers which could be programmed at some level. The symbios SCRIPTS come to mind which were common on the 53Cxx controllers.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/96635/Lsi-Symbios-Sym8953u...

This has continued on raid/fibre/nvmeof/etc boards.