Jacquard Loom
The Jacquard loom was named after its inventor Joseph Marie Jacquard, who created the first functional model in 1801. The jacquard loom was a break through technology in the textile industry that gave weavers an almost endless amount of options in pattern and color combination.
The Jacquard loom uses punch-cards. Each punch-card had rows of holes corresponding to the pattern. A hole would indicate weather or not a warp yarn (the lengthwise thread on the loom) would be raised or lowed. Punch-cards were strung together to create the complete pattern.
The Jacquard loom was the first machine to use punch-cards to control a sequence of operations. Although no computing was based on the punch-cards many consider the Jacquard loom an important part of the history of computing hardware. Jacquard looms are still commonly used today for almost any fabric type ranging from finest silk to natural wools.
