Notable Inventions of the 1980s
Dates for inventions are often controversial. Inventions are often invented by several inventors around the same time, or may be invented in an impractical form many years before another inventor improves the invention into a practical form. Where there is ambiguity, the date of the first working version of the invention is used here.
1980: Compact Disk: Philips Electronics, Sony Corp
1981: Scanning tunneling microscope: Gerd Karl Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer
1982: Insulated gate bipolar transistor: Hans Becke and Carl Wheatley RCA
1982: ACE inhibitor: John R. Vane
1982: Artificial heart: Robert Jarvik, incorporating modifications to earlier experimental designs
1983: Camcorder: Sony
1983: Internet: first TCP/IP network: Robert E. Kahn, Vint Cerf and others
1984: Lithotripsy: Claude Dornier
1985: Polymerase chain reaction: Kary Mullis
1985: DNA fingerprinting: Alec Jeffreys
1986: Breadmaker
1987: Statin: Carl Hoffman
1987: Digital Light Processing: Dr. Larry Hornbeck, Texas Instruments