GADGETS, GAMES AND GIZMOS

122 Inventions that Changed the World, this extraordinary volume of drawings is taken from the collections at the American and European patent offices, the place where many everyday items we take for granted were registered as monopolies for their inventors. The first patent we would recognise as such comes from Florence in 1421, where the architect of the cathedral dome, Brunelleschi, registered a hoisting machine. It was not until 1884 that a fork was patented in Connecticut, though we are told that this convenient aid to polite eating first came to Europe in the dowry of an 11th century Byzantine princess. The first corkscrew to be patented was in 1795, and here a version where the shaft moves down through a collar is pictured, submitted for patenting in 1883. Patents for Games and Toys include the 1930 drawings for Mickey Mouse submitted by Disney, who originally called his invention "Mortimer" until his wife told him it was too pompous, and original sketches, with measurements, for the Barbie doll in 1961 and G.I. Joe in 1966. The year 1961 also saw the first Lego patents, with its inventor calculating that six 4 x 2 Lego bricks could fit together in 915 million ways. Kermit was patented in 1959, with the prototype being made from a green coat found in a rubbish bin. Laszlo Biro invented the ballpoint pen in 1945. Car airbags were registered in 1972, though they had been invented in an earlier form 20 years before, and the first effective bulletproof vests were patented in 1968. Moving into the computer age, the first Apple mouse was patented in 1984, and 1992 saw the arrival of the floppy disk. 144pp, over 120 original sketches with commentary.