What established industry first used perforated cards to automate complex woven patterns?
Answer
Textile manufacturing using the Jacquard loom
The concept of using a perforated card to dictate an action originated in the textile industry, long before electronic computation. Specifically, the mechanism for using punched cards to control the lifting of warp threads on a loom was introduced in the early 18th century, with the system being significantly refined by Joseph Marie Jacquard around 1801. This established the viability of stored program control, where the sequence of holes acted as the machine's instructions for reproducing intricate woven designs consistently.
Related Questions
What established industry first used perforated cards to automate complex woven patterns?What administrative crisis spurred Herman Hollerith to develop his electromechanical tabulating system?How did Hollerith's innovation fundamentally advance the function of the punched card over Jacquard's system?What was the approximate time reduction achieved by Hollerith's system for the 1890 US Census processing?What key business, established by Hollerith in 1896, eventually evolved into IBM?What pivotal prerequisite for machine compatibility did Hollerith impose on nationwide census data collection?When did Joseph Marie Jacquard refine the mechanical use of punched cards for loom control?What was the labor shift involved when moving from the 1880 Census process to Hollerith's mechanized system?What characteristic defined later computer input cards that differed from Hollerith's initial census cards?Who is recognized for providing the 'idea of perforated control' versus Hollerith's application to systematic data recording?