computing

2 posts tagged with this keyword.

Portrait of Joseph Marie Jacquard, inventor of the Jacquard loom.

Holes in the Cloth

Aug 7, 2026By Andy Barca

Joseph Marie Jacquard died on 7 August 1834, decades after a Lyon mob smashed his automated loom and sold it for scrap. The punched cards that survived became the ancestor of every computer running today.

Babbage Difference Engine No. 2, Science Museum, London

The Error in Every Column

Jun 14, 2026By Andy Barca

On 14 June 1822, Charles Babbage told the Royal Astronomical Society he could build a machine to calculate mathematical tables without human error. He was right about the problem and right about the solution. He never finished building it.