In 1801, Joseph-Marie Jacquard
developed a loom in which the pattern
being woven was controlled by
punched cards. The series of cards
could be changed without changing the
mechanical design of the loom. This
was a landmark achievement in
programmability -. His machine was an
improvement over similar weaving
looms. Punch cards were preceded by
punch bands, as in the machine
proposed by Basile Bouchon. These
bands would inspire information
recording for automatic pianos and
more recently NC machine-tools.
In 1833, Charles Babbage moved on
from developing his difference engine
(for navigational calculations) to a
general purpose design, the Analytical
Engine, which drew directly on
Jacquard's punched cards for its
program storage. In 1837, Babbage
described his analytical engine. It was a
general-purpose -programmable
computer, employing punch cards for
input and a steam engine for power,
using the positions of gears and shafts
to represent numbers. His initial
idea was to use punch-cards to control
a machine that could calculate and print
logarithmic tables with huge precision
(a special purpose machine). Babbage's
idea soon developed into a general-
purpose programmable computer.
While his design was sound and the
plans were probably correct, or at least
debuggable, the project was slowed by
various problems including disputes
with the chief machinist building parts
for it. Babbage was a difficult man to
work with and argued with everyone.
All the parts for his machine had to be
made by hand. Small errors in each item
might sometimes sum to cause large
discrepancies. In a machine with
thousands of parts, which required
these parts to be much better than the
usual tolerances needed at the time, this
was a major problem. The project
dissolved in disputes with the artisan
who built parts and ended with the
decision of the British Government to
cease funding. Ada Lovelace, Lord
Byron's daughter, translated and added
notes to the"Sketch of the Analytical
Engine"by Federico Luigi, Conte
Menabrea. This appears to be the first
published description of
programming.
A reconstruction of the Difference
Engine II, an earlier, more limited
design, has been operational since
1991 at the London Science Museum.
With a few trivial changes, it works
exactly as Babbage designed it and
shows that Babbage's design ideas
were correct, merely too far ahead of
his time. The museum used computer-
controlled machine tools to construct
the necessary parts, using tolerances a
good machinist of the period would
have been able to achieve. Babbage's
failure to complete the analytical engine
can be chiefly attributed to difficulties
not only of politics and financing, but
also to his desire to develop an
increasingly sophisticated computer
and to move ahead faster than anyone
else could follow.
A machine based on Babbage's
difference engine was built in 1843 by
Per Georg Scheutz and his son Edward.
An improved Scheutzian calculation
engine was sold to the British
government and a later model was sold
to the American government and these
were used successfully in the
production of logarithmic tables.
Following Babbage, although unaware
of his earlier work, was Percy Ludgate,
an accountant from Dublin, Ireland. He
independently designed a
programmable mechanical computer,
which he described in a work that was
published in 1909.
1880s: punched card data storage
In the late 1880s, the American Herman
Hollerith invented data storage on a
medium that could then be read by a
machine. Prior uses of machine
readable media had been for control
( automatons such as piano rolls or
looms), not data."After some initial
trials with paper tape, he settled on
punched cards..."Hollerith came to
use punched cards after observing
how railroad conductors encoded
personal characteristics -of each
passenger with punches on their
tickets. To process these punched cards
he invented the tabulator, and the key
punch machine. These three inventions
were the foundation of the modern
information processing industry. His
machines used mechanical relays (and
solenoids) to increment mechanical
counters. Hollerith's method was used
in the 1890 United States Census and
the completed results were"... finished
months ahead of schedule and far
under budget". Indeed, the census
was processed years faster than the
prior census had been. Hollerith's
company eventually became the core
of IBM. IBM developed punch card
technology into a powerful tool for
business data-processing -and produced
an extensive line of unit record
equipment. By 1950, the IBM card had
become ubiquitous in industry and
government. The warning printed on
most cards intended for circulation as
documents (checks, for example),"Do
not fold, spindle or mutilate,"became a
catch phrase for the post-World War II
era.
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developed a loom in which the pattern
being woven was controlled by
punched cards. The series of cards
could be changed without changing the
mechanical design of the loom. This
was a landmark achievement in
programmability -. His machine was an
improvement over similar weaving
looms. Punch cards were preceded by
punch bands, as in the machine
proposed by Basile Bouchon. These
bands would inspire information
recording for automatic pianos and
more recently NC machine-tools.
In 1833, Charles Babbage moved on
from developing his difference engine
(for navigational calculations) to a
general purpose design, the Analytical
Engine, which drew directly on
Jacquard's punched cards for its
program storage. In 1837, Babbage
described his analytical engine. It was a
general-purpose -programmable
computer, employing punch cards for
input and a steam engine for power,
using the positions of gears and shafts
to represent numbers. His initial
idea was to use punch-cards to control
a machine that could calculate and print
logarithmic tables with huge precision
(a special purpose machine). Babbage's
idea soon developed into a general-
purpose programmable computer.
While his design was sound and the
plans were probably correct, or at least
debuggable, the project was slowed by
various problems including disputes
with the chief machinist building parts
for it. Babbage was a difficult man to
work with and argued with everyone.
All the parts for his machine had to be
made by hand. Small errors in each item
might sometimes sum to cause large
discrepancies. In a machine with
thousands of parts, which required
these parts to be much better than the
usual tolerances needed at the time, this
was a major problem. The project
dissolved in disputes with the artisan
who built parts and ended with the
decision of the British Government to
cease funding. Ada Lovelace, Lord
Byron's daughter, translated and added
notes to the"Sketch of the Analytical
Engine"by Federico Luigi, Conte
Menabrea. This appears to be the first
published description of
programming.
A reconstruction of the Difference
Engine II, an earlier, more limited
design, has been operational since
1991 at the London Science Museum.
With a few trivial changes, it works
exactly as Babbage designed it and
shows that Babbage's design ideas
were correct, merely too far ahead of
his time. The museum used computer-
controlled machine tools to construct
the necessary parts, using tolerances a
good machinist of the period would
have been able to achieve. Babbage's
failure to complete the analytical engine
can be chiefly attributed to difficulties
not only of politics and financing, but
also to his desire to develop an
increasingly sophisticated computer
and to move ahead faster than anyone
else could follow.
A machine based on Babbage's
difference engine was built in 1843 by
Per Georg Scheutz and his son Edward.
An improved Scheutzian calculation
engine was sold to the British
government and a later model was sold
to the American government and these
were used successfully in the
production of logarithmic tables.
Following Babbage, although unaware
of his earlier work, was Percy Ludgate,
an accountant from Dublin, Ireland. He
independently designed a
programmable mechanical computer,
which he described in a work that was
published in 1909.
1880s: punched card data storage
In the late 1880s, the American Herman
Hollerith invented data storage on a
medium that could then be read by a
machine. Prior uses of machine
readable media had been for control
( automatons such as piano rolls or
looms), not data."After some initial
trials with paper tape, he settled on
punched cards..."Hollerith came to
use punched cards after observing
how railroad conductors encoded
personal characteristics -of each
passenger with punches on their
tickets. To process these punched cards
he invented the tabulator, and the key
punch machine. These three inventions
were the foundation of the modern
information processing industry. His
machines used mechanical relays (and
solenoids) to increment mechanical
counters. Hollerith's method was used
in the 1890 United States Census and
the completed results were"... finished
months ahead of schedule and far
under budget". Indeed, the census
was processed years faster than the
prior census had been. Hollerith's
company eventually became the core
of IBM. IBM developed punch card
technology into a powerful tool for
business data-processing -and produced
an extensive line of unit record
equipment. By 1950, the IBM card had
become ubiquitous in industry and
government. The warning printed on
most cards intended for circulation as
documents (checks, for example),"Do
not fold, spindle or mutilate,"became a
catch phrase for the post-World War II
era.
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