rixxNov 2, 2021

You know how the Eiffel Tower won the Grand Prize at the 1889 World Fair? Well, it had to share the glory with a book.

Not any book: A book ENTIRELY WOVEN IN SILK.

You heard right. And nerds, get this: All pages of this book were produced on the Jacquard loom in 1889, using thousands (200k-500k) of punch cards. Only 50-60 copies were made. >

Show threadTui22Nov 1, 2022
@rixx That’s incredible. But weaving was the first form of programming, so it was arguably one of the earliest (if not the earliest) digital books. Amazing!
Show threadrixx
@Tui22 literally said nearly the same in the next part, haha. Not sure I agree with "digital", though.
Nov 1, 2022 at 10:09amWeb
Show threadTui22Nov 1, 2022
@rixx Fingers (digits) wove silk. 😉
Show threadrixxNov 1, 2022
@Tui22 Then how is not every knit cloth programmed? You can of course make any word mean anything, but that's a bit of a silly game.
Show threadTui22Nov 1, 2022

@rixx
I’m not a geek, but my husband and I are sufficiently nerdy that when we do a holiday we make a priority list of museums (esp science museums) and art galleries to visit.

eg On our honeymoon, almost 45 years ago, our first site-seeing visit was the Ontario Museum of Science.

So we’ve seen many looms, and learned of the role which weaving and music (consider pianolas etc) have played in the evolution to big tech.

My brief experience with Fortran was before I appreciated the big picture