The Jacquard Machine Analyzed and Explained: With an Appendix on the Preparation of Jacquard Cards, and Practical Hints to Learners of Jacquard Designing
FIRST EDITION of the earliest detailed account of the Jacquard loom. Of direct importance in the development of the computer, the Jacquard loom was the inspiration for the punch-card method of data storage.
"This extensively illustrated work is the most detailed published account of the design and operation of the Jacquard loom, on which Jacquard himself appears to have never published any details. The book includes a brief history of the Jacquard loom, a detailed description of its mechanism, and an appendix on the preparation and stamping of Jacquard cards, illustrated with pictures of the stamping machines. The punched-card method of storing and processing data evolved from methods developed by textile manufacturers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for weaving complex patterns in cloth." (Hook & Norman).
Charles Babbage cites the Jacquard loom as the model for crucial aspects of his Analytical Engine: In 1833, “Babbage conceived his chef d’oeuvre, his Analytical Engine. This was to be in concept a general purpose computer, very nearly in the modern sense... The basic idea of this machine was totally different from that of his earlier Difference Engine. In this new one he saw rather clearly some of the ideas that characterized the modern computer. He got his idea from observing the Jacquard attachment to the loom, which revolutionized the textile industry in 1805” (Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann).
As Babbage himself would later explain: “It is known as a fact that the Jacquard loom is capable of weaving any design which the imagination of man may conceive... holes [are punched] in a set of pasteboard cards in such a manner that when those cards are placed in a Jacquard loom, it will then weave upon its produce the exact pattern designed by the artist... The analogy of the Analytical Engine with this well-known process is nearly perfect” (Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher).
Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, 1888. Small folio (285x207mm), original cloth. Rubber stamp of H. Nisbet to title page (author of Grammar of Textile Design, 1906). With wood-engraved text illustrations and 15 pages of illustrated advertisements of Jacquard looms. A hint of wear to cloth, otherwise fine. Scarce.
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