Bouchon's drawloom with perforated paper tape
Telar de tiro con cinta de papel perforado de Bouchon
- Date
- 1725 · confidence high
- Place
- Lyon, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France
- Credited to
- Basile Bouchon, silk worker of Lyon
- Field
- Tools
What it is
A mechanism with a perforated paper tape that, read by a row of needles, automatically selected warp threads on a drawloom for the pattern. It is the first use of a perforated medium to program a machine.
Bouchon's device was in practice operated by hand and did not spread; Jean-Baptiste Falcon improved it with cards in 1728. It is often cited as the first step in mechanical programming.
What it led to
- Falcon's (1728) and Vaucanson's (1745) punched cards
- mechanical programming of patterned silk production
- the idea of control by perforated medium that led to the Jacquard loom and computing