One of these inventors, Joseph Marie Jacquard, invented a loom in 1801 that revolutionized
the weaving industry. Although it was not the first mechanical loom, Jacquard??™s loom was revolutionary in that
it could be used to weave complex and intricate patterns automatically.
The key idea behind the loom was that the pattern to be woven into the cloth was encoded by holes punched
in a card. A group of these cards, that were literally strung together, provided the information required to
6 INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SCIENCE [CHAP. 1
control the actions of the loom. The Jacquard loom required fewer people and little skill to operate, and versions
of the loom are still in use today. The Jacquard loom also had a profound impact on computing in that it
was the one of the first devices that could be programmed. The loom gave birth to the concept of punched cards,
which played a fundamental role in the early days of computing.
Charles Babbage, a mathematician and inventor, grew tired of calculating astronomical tables by hand,
and conceived of a way to build a mechanical device to perform the calculations automatically. In 1822
Babbage started work on a computing device, the difference engine, to automatically calculate mathematical
tables.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31