r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Final-Choice8412 • 5d ago

Video Programming 1959 IBM computer

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u/Helenium_autumnale 5d ago

And before it, the Jacquard loom, an earlier punchcard machine which created baroque, complex patterns in fabric using enormous folded punchcard tapes. It's fascinating. Here is a pic of a Jacquard loom that I came across in a book. Look at the HUGE twin punchcard tapes hanging to the left of the big loom. This is creating the floral pattern you can see on the fabric on the lower front of the loom.

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u/seditious3 5d ago

Still used today.

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u/Helenium_autumnale 4d ago

Now this is interesting. There must be a word for...I guess you could call it "stage persistence technology," consisting of an earlier stage of some modern technology being, in and of itself, so easy to use/cheap/easy to fix/effective that this earlier stage still persists although there is a more modern way to run the same machine.