COMPUTER INVENTION: TAKING THE WORK OF MANY AND MAKING IT ONE

Here is a picture of what is considered the first computer invention by many:

Joseph-Marie Jacquard actually took an original punch card design developed in 1745 for another loom. Jacquard improved on the design making it possible to make automatic production of intricate weaving patterns to be replicated. This was in 1804-05.

Jacquard combined two earlier ideas - Jean Falcon’s chain of punched cards merged with a cylinder mechanism of Jacques Vaucanson. This device was mounted on top of a treadle type loom - and became the earliest use of punch-cards to control a manufacturing process.

For the first time - big, fancy fabric designs could be woven by one man alone without assistants. possibly because Jacquard drew on other’s work - he did not obtain a patent for his device.

The punch-card idea was later adapted and adopted to control the Charles Babbage “Analytical Engine,” and was later used by Herman Hollerith in tabulating the 1890 US Census.

It has been said that Nazi Germany was using punch-cards to set up a database to track the peoples of Germany at the time - meaning also the “undesirables.” The tattooed numbers worn by the Jews going to the camps were their numbers from the punch-card database kept by the Nazis.

NEXT - THE MODERN BEGINNINGS OF COMPUTER INVENTION