The Blog

Do you know that the jacquard loom was an important technological development that directly led to the creation of the computer?  Take a look at these videos to see how the binary code of the jacquard loom is used to create complex woven patterns, and how that use of the binary code was adopted for computer programming. This video gives you a short explanation of the jacquard loom from it’s creation in 1801 by Joseph Marie Jacquard:

This next video (which has no audio) from the Victoria and Albert museum gives a detailed view of how the punch cards produce the pattern in the fabric, and you see how a weaver interacts with the loom to create the fabric in an efficient and speedy way:

Now complex fabric is made on automated jacquard looms that have the capability of producing fabric much more efficiently, enabling the cost of the fabric to become even more affordable to a broader range of customers:

And finally, an overview of the history of the computer from SlideShare showing the innovation steps: