In class this week we learned about innovations. Innovations come from great ideas that come from innovative people. One great innovation that we learned about in class was the jacquard loom, which was a mechanical loom.
The jacquard loom was invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801. what this new innovation did was very complicated textiles with a machine. These types of things may have taken someone a very long time to make on their own, because of the complexity of the patterns that they may have been working on. With the machine, The manufacturers did not have to worry about taking a long time to create these things when this machine was invented. For someone like Jacquard to create such a machine is amazing to me, that he can just think of a great idea for a new time saving a less expensive over a long period of time. The Jacquard loom is a great example of how computers came to be what they have become to this day. after researching a Little about this machine,i learned that this invention was very similar to the idea that Charles Babbage had with using punch cards as a way to run a machine. according to wikipedia " The jacquard loom was the first machine to use punch cards to control a sequence of operations. Although it did no computation based on them, it is considered an important step in the history of computing."
An interesting comparison just struck me. Our world has marvels such as, for example, the Ancient Pyramids of Giza. I wonder if future people will view The Jacquard Loom in similar fashion?
ReplyDeleteI think that if you were in the right circle of people they may think that this is just the best invention ever. It has opened up many doors in the programming world. But I think that it may be one of the best kept secrets :P
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