Am in full agreement with jacquesm.<p>Here's my partial list:<p>Application virtualization, <2000. Submitted invention disclosure in 2003 or so, when prior art search revealed someone had a patent issued a year earlier (so they must have been filed several years before that).<p>Physics hardware acceleration, 2000, while working on a virtual reality game. Learned about PhysX in about 2006 or so.<p>RISC and VLIW processor architectures, 1996, junior year undergrad, while not being aware of their prior existence.<p>Following two were while I was working on Sinclair Spectrum+ at 12-15 years of age, and largely unaware of what already existed at that time:<p>3D computer graphics/animation, 1990, 13 years of age, after learning coordinate geometry two years ahead of peer students. Tried to come up with a simple mathematical function f(x, y) that that would resemble a human face, with no success. Prototype created frames offline using interpreted BASIC and cycled them on the screen using hand-written machine code.<p>Compilers, while using slow interpreted BASIC on Sinclair Spectrum, 1992, 15 years of age, when I first learned how to program in machine code manually. My prototype would only convert text code in reverse-polish notation (RPN) to RPN instructions available on the processor (so more like assembler really).<p>Envisaged zero static power logic with complementary relays (like CMOS), at high school, while not knowing anything about CMOS then.<p>Lesson learnt: (See jacquesm's comment).