title: Significant new inventions in computing since 1980
body: <p>This question arose from <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/357813/help-me-remember-a-quote-from-alan-kay#389642">comments</a> about different kinds of progress in computing over the last 50 years or so.</p>
  
  <p>I was asked by some of the other participants to raise it as a question to the whole forum.</p>
  
  <p>The basic idea here is not to bash the current state of things but to try to understand something about the progress of coming up with fundamental new ideas and principles.</p>
  
  <p>I claim that we need really new ideas in most areas of computing, and I would like to know of any important and powerful ones that have been done recently. If we can't really find them, then we should ask "Why?" and "What should we be doing?"</p>