jacquard loom this portrait of jacquard was woven in silk on a jacquard loom and required 24000 punched cards to create 1839 it was only produced to order charles babbage owned one of these portraits it inspired him in using perforated cards in his analytical engine the jacquard machine french multiple rows of holes were punched on each card with one complete card corresponding to one row of the design several such paper cards generally white in color can be seen in the images below chains like bouchons earlier use of paper tape allowed sequences of any length to be constructed not limited by the size of a card it is based on earlier inventions by the frenchmen basile bouchon 1725 jean baptiste falcon 1728 and jacques vaucanson 1740 in lyon live displays of a jacquard loom are available at a few private museums around lyon and also twice a day at la maison des canuts as well as at other locations around the world both the jacquard process and the necessary loom attachment are named after their inventor this mechanism is probably one of the most important weaving inventions as jacquard shedding made possible the automatic production of unlimited varieties of pattern weaving the term jacquard is not specific or limited to any particular loom but rather refers to the added control mechanism that automates the patterning the process can also be used for patterned knitwear and machineknitted textiles such as jerseys this use of replaceable punched cards to control a sequence of operations is considered an important step in the history of computing hardware history 19th century jacquard loom in former times if figured designs were required this was done on a drawloom the heddles with warp ends to be pulled up were manually selected by a second operator draw boy apart from the weaver it was slow and labourintensive with practical limitations on the complexity of the pattern the first important improvement of the draw loom took place in 1725 when basile bouchon introduced the principle of applying a perforated band of paper a continuous roll of paper was punched by hand in sections each of which represented one lash or tread and the length of the roll was determined by the number of shots in each repeat of pattern the jacquard machine subsequently evolved from this joseph marie jacquard recognized that although weaving was intricate it was repetitive and saw that a mechanism could be developed for the production of sophisticated patterns just as it had been done for the production of simple patterns it is difficult to determine what part of the jacquard machine was designed by jacquard himself he may have combined the best mechanical elements of other inventors but at any rate the machine he made must have differed from its predecessors in arrangement and minor working details it was similar in most general principles to vaucansons arrangement except that he made use of jeanbaptiste falcons individual paste board cards and his square prism or card cylinder which he is credited with having fully perforated on each of its four sides in lieu of vaucansons perforated barrel jacquards machine also contained eight rows of needles and uprights as compared with vaucansons double row of which modifications enabled him to increase the figuring capacity of the machine in his first machine he supported the harness by knotted cords which he elevated by a single trap board one of the chief advantages claimed for the jacquard machine was that unlike previous damaskweaving machines in which the figuring shed was usually drawn once for every four shots with the new apparatus it could be drawn on every shot thus producing a fabric with greater definition of outline jacquards invention had a deep influence on charles babbage in that respect he is viewed by some authors as a precursor of modern computing science principles of operation jacquard 2 on the diagram to the right the cards are fastened into a continuous chain1 which passes over a square box at each quarter rotation a new card is presented to the jacquard head which represents one row the box swings from the right to the position shown and presses against the control rods2 where there is a hole the rod passes through the card and is unmoved whereas if the hole is not punched the rod is pushed to the left each rod acts upon a hook3 when the rod is pushed in the hook moves out of position to the left a rod that is not pushed in leaves its hook in place a beam4 then rises under the hooks and those hooks in the rest location are raised the hooks that have been displaced are not moved by the beam each hook can have multiple cords5 the cords pass through a guide6 and are attached to their heddle7 and a return weight8 the heddles raise the warp to create the shed through which the shuttle carrying the weft will pass a loom with a 400 hook head might have four threads connected to each hook resulting in a fabric that is 1600 warp ends wide with four repeats of the weave going across the term jacquard loom is somewhat inaccurate it is the jacquard head that adapts to a great many dobby looms that allow the weaving machine to then create the intricate patterns often seen in jacquard weaving jacquard looms although relatively common in the textile industry are not as ubiquitous as dobby looms which are usually faster and much cheaper to operate however unlike jacquard looms they are not capable of producing so many different weaves from one warp modern jacquard looms are controlled by computers in place of the original punched cards and can have thousands of hooks the threading of a jacquard loom is so laborintensive that many looms are threaded only once subsequent warps are then tied into the existing warp with the help of a knotting robot which ties each new thread on individually even for a small loom with only a few thousand warp ends the process of rethreading can take days mechanical jacquard looms punched cards in use in a jacquard loom a punch for jacquard cards originally the jacquard machines were mechanical and the fabric design was stored in a series of punched cards which were joined to form a continuous chain the jacquards often were small and only independently controlled a relatively few warp ends this required a number of repeats across the loom width larger capacity machines or the use of multiple machines allowed greater control with fewer repeats and hence larger designs could be woven across the loom width a factory must choose looms and shedding mechanisms to suit its commercial requirements as a rule the more warp control required the greater the expense so it is not economical to purchase jacquard machines if one can make do with a dobby mechanism as well as the capital expense the jacquard machines are more costly to maintain as they are complex and require higher skilled personnel an expensive design system is required to prepare the designs for the loom and possibly a cardcutting machine weaving is more costly since jacquard mechanisms are more likely to produce faults than dobby or cam shedding also the looms will not run as quickly and downtime will increase because it takes time to change the continuous chain of cards when a design changes for these reasons it is best to weave larger batches with mechanical jacquards electronic jacquard looms it is recorded that in 1855 a frenchman adapted the jacquard mechanism to a system by which it could be worked by electromagnets there was significant interest however trials were not successful and the development was soon lost in history bonas machine company ltd milan in 1983 although the machines were initially small modern technology has allowed jacquard machine capacity to increase significantly and single end warp control can extend to more than 10000 warp ends this avoids the need for repeats and symmetrical designs and allows almost infinite versatility the computercontrolled machines significantly reduce the down time associated with changing punched paper designs thus allowing smaller batch sizes however electronic jacquards are costly and may not be required in a factory weaving large batch sizes and smaller designs the larger machines allowing single end warp control are very expensive and can only be justified where great versatility is required or very specialized design requirements need to be met for example they are an ideal tool to increase the ability and stretch the versatility of the niche linen jacquard weavers who remain active in europe and the west while most of the large batch commodity weaving has moved to low cost areas linen products associated with jacquard weaving are linen damask napery jacquard apparel fabrics and damask bed linen jacquard weaving of course uses all sorts of fibers and blends of fibers and it is used in the production of fabrics for many end uses research is under way to develop layered and shaped items as reinforcing components for structures made from composite materials importance in computing the jacquard head used replaceable punched cards to control a sequence of operations it is considered an important step in the history of computing hardware the ability to change the pattern of the looms weave by simply changing cards was an important conceptual precursor to the development of computer programming and data entry charles babbage knew of jacquard looms and planned to use cards to store programs in his analytical engine in the late 19th century herman hollerith took the idea of using punched cards to store information a step further when he created a punched card tabulating machine which he used to input data for the 1890 us census a large punchedcardbased data processing industry developed in the first half of the twentieth century dominated by the international business machine corporation ibm with its line of unit record equipment the cards were used for data however with programming done by plugboards some early computers such as the 1944 ibm automatic sequence controlled calculator harvard mark i received program instructions from a paper tape punched with holes similar to jacquards string of cards later computers executed programs from higherspeed memory though cards were commonly used to load the programs into memory punched cards remained in use in computing up until the mid 1980s examples austrian jacquard handloom end of 19th century national museum of textile industry sliven bulgaria closeup view of comber board harness mails weights lingoes and warp with 1040 ends punched cards in use in a jacquard loom german museum of technology berlin weaving shuttle on a jacquard sample punched card loom mechanism in silkweaving workshop varanasi uttar pradesh india weaver in a silkweaving workshop varanasi uttar pradesh india closeup view of the 8 26 hole punched cardsone card per pick weft in the fabric jacquard looms in the textile department of the strzemiski academy of fine arts in d poland weaving on a jacquard loom with a flying shuttle at the textile department of the strzemiski academy of fine arts in d poland following the pattern holes are punched in the appropriate places on a jacquard card at the department of textile art at strzemiski academy of fine arts in d poland detail of dove and rose jacquardwoven silk and wool double cloth furnishing textile designed by william morris punched paper tape used to instruct the 1944 harvard mark i computer detail of jaquard loom at textielmuseum tilburg four hattersley looms with the distinctive jacquard head thomas ferguson co ltd jacquard weaver wikimedia commons has media related to jacquard weave wikimedia commons has media related to jacquard looms nelson hector william 1909 jacquard machines instruction paper chicago american school of correspondence posselt emanuel anthony 1887 the jacquard machine analyzed and explained with an appendix on the preparation of jacquard cards philadelphia pennsylvania museum and school of industrial art posselt emanuel anthony 1893 the jacquard machine analyzed explained the preparation of jacquard cards and practical hints to learners of jacquard designing philadelphia razy c 1913 tude analytique des petits modles de mtiers exposs au muse des tissus lyon france muse historique des tissus posselt emanuel a 1892 the jacquard machine analyzed and explained the preparation of jacquard cards and practical hints to learners of jacquard designing digital facsimile from the linda hall library vteweavingweaves basketweave charvet coverlet dobby double weave evenweave lampas oxford pile weave piqu plain weave satin weave shot twill gabardine components textiles warp and weft yarn tools and techniques barbercolman knotter beamer chilkat weaving fingerweaving flying shuttle heald heddle ikat inkle weaving jacquard weaving kasuri loom navajo weaving pibiones reed salish weaving shed shuttle sizing sizing machine tablet weaving tniko tapestry temple types of looms air jet loom dobby loom jacquard loom hattersley loom horrocks loom lancashire loom northrop loom power loom rapier loom roberts loom warp weighted loom weavers acesas anni albers otti berger ada dietz micheline beauchemin thomas ferguson co ltd elisabeth forsell dorothy liebes ethel mairet maria elisabet berg lilly reich margaretha reichardt john rylands brigitta scherzenfeldt clara sherman gunta stlzl judocus de vos margaretha zetterberg employment practices more looms kissing the shuttle piecerate list mills bancroft mill queen street mill 