How an 1803 Jacquard Loom Led to Computer Technology

Joseph Marie-Jacquard developed the mechanical Jacquard loom in France in 1803. This innovative machine used punch cards to control the design of textiles made on the loom. These cards are predecessors to the modern-day computer punch cards and computer technology.

[riittap]

I'm a first year CS student and as a part of a course assignment I was reading on history of computers. I was blown away by this story and seeing this video gave me the chills.

[RossTrittipo]

Imagine being Monsieur Jacquard coming into his shop, getting his loom all ready to use, and then it decides to update.

[davidfaiheng]

Wow. I'm so blown away with the working of this machine, which eventually led to the modern world of technology we live in today.

[greensleeves]

Hello. I am currently studying Information Technology and after learning about the aformentioned "punch cards" that you referenced in the video I must say I was blown away by your video. Truly amazing how something invented so long ago can still baffle the human mind centuries later! Also you explained everything so masterfully and just wanted to say many thank you very much for the content! As I said truly amazing and beautiful textile work!

[muraleekrishna.s]

Its telling us how simple is a computer(0&1), all so COMPLICATED. 🙏

[dimitribazos]

Fascinating! Virginia Postrel’s “The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World” brought me here. She described this device but, not being able to visualize it, I decided to look it up. It really is a very early computer; neat!

[empireofgreatjanggeo]

Its like printing paper but in loom, wow, old technology is so awesome

[seajelly]

My mother, who is of the baby boomer generation, operated very large computers back in the the day. Before keyboards and so on. The computers were given commands by punch cards. Well, I wasn't there because I wasn't alive yet, but that's what she tells me :)

[cjnetter]

That last time that I was at Greenfield Village I saw this loom in a rather disassembled state and the docent was saying how they were looking for people to help restore it. Sadly, living 2300 miles away, I couldn't volunteer. But I often wondered whether it had been restored to a working condition. I'm thrilled to see that it is up and working!

[stephanieblaize]

I’m reading “the armor of light” by Ken Follett which is an historical fiction book about weaving and Follett talks about this machine and what it did to the industry. This video illustrates it and explains it perfectly.

[-kaitharikalam]

Good job.

Mind blowing work.

I love my weaving work at my place....

[garrettbell]

For some reason, this hole punch programming concept is EXTREMELY fascinating to me lol.

[scottm]

Great presentation. Have read about these but couldn't visualize it properly. This was very helpful. Thank you

[sock]

This thing really is turning complete as well. If you wanted to you could, slowly, calculate anything you want.

[duanedonaldson]

I have seen a very similar loom machine in Japan, very very detailed piece of machinery. It was used to make simple window blinds for smaller windows such as a kitchen window and the blinds were woven with fake thin bamboo rods of different colors to give a nice design pattern. It was made of solid cast iron for the main portions and seemed super heavy, but it was overall very beautiful in action.

[loomdesignstudiovenktagiri]

We are punching this cards for the last 18 years
Working for the venkatagiri sarers in india

[williamtrajano]

Thank you for this video. very interesting, . My son is learning coding and is super nice to be able to show this to him

[dave]

What do you first year computer students think about it, when you consider that the woven cloth is just another form of memory?

[lmercuryw]

ada lovelace and charles babbage used the technology of the jacquard loom to come up with the concepts for the first computer programs all the way back in 1843!

[jims]

Very cool. Exactly what I was looking to learn more about.