Artificial hearts are nothing new: AbioMed implanted its first replacement heart unit in 2001, and as far back as the 1980s the considerably more cumbersome Jarvik 7 was unveiled to the public.

FORBES: Magazine Article

The first serious attempt to build one happened in the 1980s, when Jarvik-7, made by Robert Jarvik, a surgeon at the University of Utah, captured the world's attention.

ECONOMIST: A promising new artificial heart wins regulatory approval

Almost 20 years have passed since Barney Clark lived for 112 days on the Jarvik-7 heart.

FORBES: Lonely Heart

Barney Clark had tubes sticking out of his chest to an air compressor that powered the Jarvik-7.

FORBES: Lonely Heart

But Jarvik-7 was a complicated affair that needed to be connected via tubes to machines outside the body.

ECONOMIST: A promising new artificial heart wins regulatory approval

The science has come a long way since the days of the Jarvik-7.

FORBES: Lonely Heart

Patients on the CardioWest heart, the successor to the Jarvik-7, have to wheel around a machine the size of a small refrigerator and are confined to a hospital.

FORBES: Lonely Heart