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A comprehensive account of vacuum pumps of all types is given by Power (1966) in his book ‘High Vacuum Pumping Equipment’. Apart from some account needed for clarification, the present article therefore deals mainly with developments since 1965/6. These developments are almost all in the form of improvements on existing types of pump. Only one radically new method of pumping has been introduced: the accommodation pump (Hobson, 1970; Hobson and Pye, 1972) and this will not be considered further here because it does not promise to become a commercially viable pump for transporting significant quantities of gas.