PRTV (Peterlee Relational Test Vehicle) was the world's first relational database management system that could handle significant data volumes.
It was a relational query system with powerful query facilities, but very limited update facility and no simultaneous multiuser facility. PRTV was a successor from the very first relational implementation, IS1.
PRTV included several firsts in the relational database area:
PRTV was based on a relational algebra, Information Systems Base Language (ISBL) and followed the relational model very strictly. Even features such as user-defined functions were formalized within that model. [6] The PRTV team also introduced surrogates to the relational model [4] to help formalize relational update operations; and a formalisation for updating through views. [7] However neither of these was implemented within PRTV. PRTV emphatically did not implement NULL values, because this conception was introduced only in 1979. [8]
PRTV was itself never available as a product, but the Urban Management System [9] built on it was available as a limited IBM product.
PRTV was written in a mixture of languages. The higher layers were written in MP/3 and PL/I, [2]: 297 whereas the lower layers were written in PL/I and System/370 assembler language. [2]: 301 MP/3 was a macro processing language developed at Peterlee from 1973 onwards, similar to ML/I or TRAC. [10] PRTV ran on System/370 IBM mainframes. [2]: 301
PRTV (Peterlee Relational Test Vehicle) was the world's first relational database management system that could handle significant data volumes.
It was a relational query system with powerful query facilities, but very limited update facility and no simultaneous multiuser facility. PRTV was a successor from the very first relational implementation, IS1.
PRTV included several firsts in the relational database area:
PRTV was based on a relational algebra, Information Systems Base Language (ISBL) and followed the relational model very strictly. Even features such as user-defined functions were formalized within that model. [6] The PRTV team also introduced surrogates to the relational model [4] to help formalize relational update operations; and a formalisation for updating through views. [7] However neither of these was implemented within PRTV. PRTV emphatically did not implement NULL values, because this conception was introduced only in 1979. [8]
PRTV was itself never available as a product, but the Urban Management System [9] built on it was available as a limited IBM product.
PRTV was written in a mixture of languages. The higher layers were written in MP/3 and PL/I, [2]: 297 whereas the lower layers were written in PL/I and System/370 assembler language. [2]: 301 MP/3 was a macro processing language developed at Peterlee from 1973 onwards, similar to ML/I or TRAC. [10] PRTV ran on System/370 IBM mainframes. [2]: 301