1752-1834. French textile manufacturer who
invented a punched-card system for
programming designs on a carpet-making loom.
In 1804 he constructed looms that used a
series of punched cards to control the
pattern of longitudinal warp threads
depressed before each sideways passage of the
shuttle. On later machines the punched cards
were joined to form an endless loop that
represented the `program' for the repeating
pattern of a carpet.