[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osCPWMyJOj8&w=470] The Jacquard loom, invented in the early 1800s, used punched cards to manufacture relatively complex ...

If you mention punch cards to most people, they’ll think of voting. If you mention it to most older computer people, they’ll think of punching programs for big computers on cards. But punched cards ...

Before IBM, before punch-card computers, before Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, one of the very first machines that could run something like what we now call a "program" was used to make fabric.

1752: Joseph Marie Jacquard is born in Lyon, France. The weaver and inventor would create the first programmable power loom, revolutionize the weaving industry and lay the foundation for modern data ...

An automated loom that transformed the 19th century textile industry and became the inspiration for future data processing machines. Developed by the French silk-weaver, Joseph-Marie Jacquard ...