Editing Ingres (database) (section)

===1970s===
In 1973 when the [[IBM System R|System R]] project led by [[Edgar Codd]] was getting started at [[IBM]], the research team released a series of papers describing the system they were building.<ref name=BSD/> Two scientists at Berkeley, [[Michael Stonebraker]] and [[Eugene Wong]], became interested in the concept after reading the papers, and started a relational database research project of their own.<ref name=UniversityINGRES>{{cite journal
|quote=University INGRES had three client applications: the terminal monitor, EQUEL C, and GeoQUEL.
|doi=10.1109/MAHC.2012.51
|title=History of the Ingres Corporation
|author=L.A. Rowe  |journal=IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
|volume=34
|issue=4
|pages=58–70
|date=2012|s2cid=16078334
}}</ref><ref name="rdbmsearlyyearsoh20070612">{{Cite interview |interviewer=Burton Grad |title=RDBMS Plenary 1: Early Years |url=https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/05/102702562-05-01-acc.pdf |pages=30-31 |access-date=2025-05-30 |publisher=Computer History Museum |date=2007-06-12}}</ref><ref name="rdbmsingressybase20070613">{{Cite interview |interviewer=Doug Jerger |title=RDBMS Workshop: Ingres and Sybase |url=https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/05/102702565-05-01-acc.pdf |access-date=2025-05-30 |publisher=Computer History Museum |date=2007-06-13}}</ref>

They had already raised money for researching a geographic database system for Berkeley's economics group, which they called '''Ingres''', for '''IN'''teractive '''G'''raphics '''RE'''trieval '''S'''ystem. They decided to use this money to fund their relational project instead, and used this as a seed for a new and much larger project. They decided to re-use the original project name, and the new project became ''University INGRES''.<ref name=UniversityINGRES/> For further funding, Stonebraker approached the [[DARPA]], the obvious funding source for computing research and development at the time, but both the DARPA and the [[Office of Naval Research]] (ONR) turned them down<ref>{{cite book |quote=In search of further support, Stonebraker approached the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)"
|title=The Rise of Relational Databases
|url=https://www.nap.edu/read/6323/chapter/8|doi=10.17226/6323
|isbn=978-0-309-06278-7
|year=1999
}}</ref> as they were already funding database research elsewhere. Stonebraker then introduced his idea to other agencies, and, with help from his colleagues he eventually obtained modest support from the [[National Science Foundation|NSF]]<ref>NSF Funding#s, over time= 0205445, 8715235, 0844480, 0848727, 9116860 {{cite web
|quote=DEC has provided the researchers funded under this grant with the equipment ...
|url=https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=
|title=NSF Award Search: Award#9116860 - Design of ...}}</ref> and three military agencies: the [[Air Force Office of Scientific Research]], the [[Army Research Office]], and the [[Naval Electronic Systems Command]].

Thus funded, Ingres was developed during the mid-1970s by a rotating team of students and staff. Ingres went through an evolution similar to that of [[IBM System R]], with an early prototype in 1974 followed by major revisions to make the code maintainable. Ingres was then disseminated to a small user community, and project members rewrote the prototype repeatedly to incorporate accumulated experience, feedback from users, and new ideas. The research project ended in 1985.<ref name="UCBerkley" />