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Secondary sourceArtifact1801

Jacquard Loom

Joseph Marie Jacquard · 1801

A punched-card controlled weaving loom whose card system inspired the programming method of Babbage's Analytical Engine, the machine Ada Lovelace wrote about.

The loom's punched-card system was the model for the programming idea Lovelace described in her notes on the Analytical Engine.

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A large industrial Jacquard-style loom in a workshop with a wide cream-colored woven fabric rolled on the front beam and warp threads spreading up to a harness of wooden frames above. Metal machinery and a chain drive are visible on the right.
Jacquard-style punched-card loom, based on an invention patented 1804.

About this source

What it is

The Jacquard machine is a device fitted to a loom that uses a chain of punched cards to control complex weaving patterns automatically. It was patented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1804, building on earlier inventions.

Why it matters

The idea of using punched cards to control a sequence of operations deeply influenced Charles Babbage's design for the Analytical Engine. Ada Lovelace wrote about this connection in her notes, describing how the Engine, like the Jacquard loom, could use cards to direct its operations — one of the ideas that makes her notes important in the history of computing.

Look closer

  • How might an invention for weaving cloth inspire an idea for a calculating machine?
  • What does this connection suggest about where new technology often comes from?
  • What does the loom in the photograph have in common with, and different from, a modern computer?

This artifact is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Ada Lovelace on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Scanned page titled 'Diagram for the computation by the Engine of the Numbers of Bernoulli. See Note G (page 722 et seq.)'. It is a dense table with columns for operation number, nature of operation, variables acted upon and receiving results, data and working variables, and results, filled with rows of symbols, formulas and numbers.Document

Primary source

Note G

Ada Lovelace · 1843

Title page of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, a romaunt, by Lord Byron. Black-letter heading, an epigraph in French attributed to Le Cosmopolite, and imprint: London, printed for John Murray, 32 Fleet-Street; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin, 1812. Aged cream paper.Book

Primary source

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Lord Byron · 1812

Watercolour portrait of a young woman with dark hair in side ringlets and a headdress of dark flowers and a yellow blossom. She wears a black lace shawl over a lilac dress with a gold fan and white gloves, against a grey-brown background.Painting

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Watercolour Portrait of Ada Lovelace

Alfred Edward Chalon · c. 1840

Full-length oil portrait of a young woman in a white satin gown with puffed sleeves and a red velvet fur-trimmed cloak, wearing a jeweled tiara in her dark hair. She stands by a carved wooden staircase and column, looking to the right.Painting

Primary source

Portrait of Ada Lovelace by Margaret Carpenter

Margaret Sarah Carpenter · 1836

Document

Primary source

Notions sur la machine analytique de M. Charles Babbage

Luigi Federico Menabrea · 1842

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