History:

The ABLJ was developed by Maurice Fenzy in 1961. Early versions were inflated by mouth underwater. Later versions had their own air inflation cylinder. Some had carbon dioxide inflation cylinders, a development which was abandoned when valves that allowed divers to breathe from the BC's inflation bag were introduced. Since 1969 most modern BCs have used inflation gas from one of the diver's main gas cylinders, in addition to an oral inflation tube which is used at the surface to save gas. In 1971, Scubapro developed the Stabilizer Jacket, the first jacket-style BC, and in 1972 Watergill developed the Atpac wing.

More recent innovations for jacket BCs include, weight pouches to adjust attitude underwater, putting the weights on the BC rather than on a weightbelt, integrated regulators, heavily reinforced 1050 denier ballistic nylon. Innovations for wings include redundant bladders, stainless steel backplates, light weight soft nylon backplates, and 85lb lift bladders.

Dive Rite pioneered the first wing for diving twin cylinders in 1985. Competitors in tech diving include Ocean Management Systems. Other SCUBA manufacturers include Sherwood, Zeagle, scubapro and [http://cressisub.it/index_int.php?lang=us cressisub.