Free shipping on orders over $89 - Limited time only - T&Cs apply
Track My Order
Help Centre
Likes
My Wish ListsLogin / Join
Booktopia
Australia's local bookstore
Get Free Shipping on orders over $89
Jacquard's Web : How a hand-loom led to the birth of the information age - James Essinger

Jacquard's Web

How a hand-loom led to the birth of the information age

By: James Essinger

eText | 28 October 2004

At a Glance

eText

$20.78

or 4 interest-free payments of $5.20 with

Instant online reading in your Booktopia eTextbook Library *

Why choose an eTextbook?

Instant Access *

Purchase and read your book immediately

Read Aloud

Listen and follow along as Bookshelf reads to you

Study Tools

Built-in study tools like highlights and more

* eTextbooks are not downloadable to your eReader or an app and can be accessed via web browsers only. You must be connected to the internet and have no technical issues with your device or browser that could prevent the eTextbook from operating.

Jacquard's Web is the story of some of the most ingenious inventors the world has ever known, a fascinating account of how a hand-loom invented in Napoleonic France led to the development of the modern information age. James Essinger, a master story-teller, shows through a series of remarkable and meticulously researched historical connections (spanning two centuries and never investigated before) that the Jacquard loom kick-started a process of scientific evolution which would lead directly to the development of the modern computer. The invention of Jacquard's loom in 1804 enabled the master silk-weavers of Lyons to weave fabrics 25 times faster than had previously been possible. The device used punched cards, which stored instructions for weaving whatever pattern or design was required; it proved an outstanding success. These cards can very reasonably be described as the world's first computer programmes. In this engaging and delightful book, James Essinger reveals a plethora of extraordinary links between the nineteenth-century world of weaving and today's computer age: to give just one example, modern computer graphics displays are based on exactly the same principles as those employed in Jacquard's special woven tableaux. Jacquard's Web also introduces some of the most colourful and interesting characters in the history of science and technology: the modest but exceptionally dedicated Jacquard himself, the brilliant but temperamental Victorian polymath Charles Babbage, who dreamt of a cogwheel computer operated using Jacquard cards, and the imaginative and perceptive Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's only legitimate daughter.

on
Desktop
Tablet
Mobile

You Can Find This eBook In

Non-FictionScienceScience in GeneralPopular ScienceHistory of ScienceBiographies & True Stories BiographiesScience, Technology & Medicine BiographiesSociety & CultureCultural StudiesHistory of IdeasComputing & I.T.
Computer ScienceHistorySpecific Events & Topics in HistorySocial & Cultural History

More in History of Science

Ike : An American Hero - Michael Korda

eBOOK

Ike

An American Hero

eBook

$13.99

This product is categorised by