Early Computers

In 1800, French industrialist J. M. Jacquard invented a loom to weave fabrics with complex designs. The loom was controlled by punched paper cards and has been called a “specialized graphics computer.” A few years later, Charles Babbage (1792-1871), a math professor at Cambridge, designed what he called the “difference engine” and the “analytical engine” that were essentially large calculators similarly controlled by punch cards. Babbage collaborated with Augusta Ada King (1815-52), Countess of Lovelace and daughter of Lord Byron, who wrote some of the first programs–she called them “instruction routines”–for the engines. -from Art & Mass Media by Betty Ann Brown, Ph.D