Joseph Marie Jacquard
persons
Joseph Marie Jacquard (1752-1834) - French weaver and merchant. He invented the means of automatic weaving on jacquard loom with the help of pasteboard cards in 1801. The loom played an important role in the development of other programmable machines and is considered one of the earliest ancestors of the modern-day computer.
Jacquard was born and spent his life in Lyon, France, one of the most important centers of European silk production. Jacquard worked in the weaving business and started working on various inventions from 1800. In 1801, he presented his invention at the Exhibition of Products of French Industry in Paris, where he was awarded a bronze medal.
The potential of Jacquard's loom was immediately recognized. On 12 April 1805, Emperor Napoleon and Empress Josephine visited Lyon and viewed Jacquard's new loom, granting the patent for it to the city of Lyon. In return, Jacquard received a lifelong pension and a royalty for each loom that was bought and used.
The silk-weavers fiercly opposed his invention, fearing that its introduction, aimed at reducing labor, would deprive them of their livelihood. However, its advantages secured its general adoption, and by 1812 there were 11,000 Jacquard looms in use in France.
The Jacquard Loom is a mechanical loom that uses pasteboard cards with punched holes, each card corresponding to one row of the design.
The Jacquard Loom is a mechanical loom that uses pasteboard cards with punched holes, each card corresponding to one row of the design. Multiple rows of holes are punched in the cards and the many cards that compose the design of the textile are strung together in order. The combinations of the holes and unpunched areas create a kind of code, similar to the digital binary code. It is due to this principle that Jacquard Loom may be considered as an ancestor of the computer. Digital Jacquard Loom was created in the 21st century, which is connected to a computer and can weave any digital file using Photoshop or any similar programs.
