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 follow-on from the very first relational implementation, IS1.

Features

PRTV included several firsts in the relational database area:

• implemented relational optimizer ^[1]
• implemented cost based relational optimizer ^[2]
• handle tables of 1000 rows up to 10,000,000 rows^[3]
• user defined functions (UDFs) within an RDB (also a large suite of built-in functions such as trigonometric and statistical)^[4]
• geographic information system based on an RDB (using UDFs such as point-in-polygon).^[5]

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 of the formal problems these pose.

PRTV was itself never available as a product, but the Urban Management System^[8] built on it was available as a limited IBM product.

References