17 inventions that are way older than you think

Ahead of their times

Throughout history, forward-thinking companies and visionary individuals have come up with ideas that were so ahead of their time that the world just wasn't ready for them. As a result, many of the well-known inventions we take for granted today are actually much older than you think.

Read on to discover the ingenious ideas which were just a little bit too early, sometimes by several centuries. 

The flushing toilet

The flushing toilet is one of those mod cons we all take for granted but it's been around longer than you might think.

The Minoans had a working model as far back as 2000 BC and examples have been excavated at historic sites on the Greek island of Crete.

The battery from Baghdad

Electricity is a modern invention, so archaeologists were understandably confused when they found what appeared to be a crude battery dating back to more than 200 years before Christ in modern-day Baghdad.

The find consisted of a pot with a metal rod which was surrounded by a copper cylinder. It's thought that the cylinder could be filled with an acidic agent to generate an electric current. It's not known what it was actually used for at the time, but the name Baghdad Battery stuck.

The steam engine

Steam engines powered the Industrial Revolution, but they actually date back to the first century AD when Hero of Alexandria came up with the idea for a device he called an aeolipile.

It was a radial steam turbine that turned when the central water container was heated and was not unlike a jet engine. Sadly few people saw the potential at the time.

Vending machines

Incredibly, Hero is also considered the father of the vending machine.

His ahead of its time concept dispensed holy water in return for a coin via a series of counter-weights and valves.

Aircraft

Artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was full of ideas that were centuries ahead of his time. But his crowning glory was probably the day he came up with the idea of manned aircraft. 

Sadly for Leonardo, it was hundreds of years before powered flight was made possible. But his design, inspired by wildlife, looks a little like a rudimentary hang-glider, so it's conceivable it could have flown had it been built. 

Contact lenses

In 1632, the philosopher Rene Descartes came up with the concept of what we know today as the contact lens.

His idea for a glass tube filled with water and fitted with a lens on the end didn't take off at the time, probably because it had to be held in place by hand. However, it paved the way for later prototypes.

Computers

We began making forms of the computer earlier than you might think. In 1786, an engineer in the Hessian army named J. H. Müller described the idea of a different engine – a mechanical device capable of calculating sums.

In 1822, Charles Babbage completed work on a small difference engine, but the metalwork involved in the construction proved too expensive to make it viable for mass production. 

Solar energy cells

Way back in 1883 an American named Charles Fritts became the first person to develop a solid state solar cell.

But if he was hoping for big things he was to be disappointed. It was only 1% efficient.

Electric cars

We think of electric cars as a modern phenomenon, but people have been trying to invent them as far back as the 1830s. In 1891 American inventor William Morrison built the world’s first workable electric car. By the turn of the century, 28% of all cars produced in the US were electric.

Believing it would be the future, Henry Ford threw all his efforts into the electric car. Ford was helped by Thomas Edison, who produced a model in 1912, but electric's days were numbered. People wanted more power and the ability to drive longer distances. With petrol becoming more freely available, electric cars simply couldn't compete. 

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Virtual reality

Once the preserve of science fiction, virtual reality headsets are increasingly commonplace today. However VR has been with us for decades. In 1956, cinematographer Morton Heilig created Sensorama, the first VR machine. Essentially a large booth people could sit in, it used various technologies to stimulate all the senses, including smell, and boasted additional atmospheric features like simulated wind.

This "cinema of the future" failed to take off at the time but was a clear forerunner to the VR we recognise today.

Consumer camcorders

In 1977 Polaroid developed a way for users to shoot motion films, record them onto cassettes, and play them back through a viewing terminal, known as Polavision.

The product never caught on and it became known as an expensive flop. However, it was a forerunner of the soon-to-be-successful camcorder. 

Internet browsers

Back in 1985 Apple created an exciting piece of technology but had no idea what to do with it. Called the HyperCard, it allowed people to jump from one virtual card to another by pointing a cursor at it.

Apple bundled it up with its new computers in the hope people would sort it out for themselves. They didn't, but it did ultimately inspire what we know today as the web browser.

Tablet computers

Apple certainly popularised the iPad and touch computing, but others were way ahead of them. Back in the 1980s, the likes of Go Corp, Linus, and Pencept all produced their own versions.

Microsoft even tried a few years before the iPad, but its effort also failed to launch as the technology wasn’t quite ready yet.

Social networks

Several sites tried Facebook-style social networking before Facebook took over the world. All flopped.

Special mention goes to the bright sparks who based theirs on Kevin Bacon. SixDegrees.com was grounded in the theory that everyone on the planet is separated from the actor by just six steps. 

Same-day delivery

Thanks to Amazon, we're used to same-day delivery, but in the 1990s a host of companies tried and failed.

Webvan and Kozmo were two of the highest-profile flops. They raised vast amounts of cash, burned through it quickly, and never came close to making money.

Cloud computing

Cloud computing has revolutionised the way we access information and do business, but it’s an older idea than you might think. Way back in the mists of time, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen developed Loudcloud, essentially the first cloud computing service.

However, the market wasn't quite there and the company pivoted to become a more traditional data center business. 

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