Early OODBMS Emerge

Object-Oriented Database Management Systems (OODBMS) like GemStone (1986) and Versant (1990) offered a direct way to store objects, illustrating the desire to avoid the object-relational mismatch, even if they didn't gain mainstream adoption.

Significance

While not ORMs themselves, OODBMS highlighted the core problem of object persistence and the desire for a seamless object-based data model, paving the way for ORM solutions to emerge as a bridge to relational systems.