O invento de Jacquard e os computadores: alguns aspectos das origens da programação no século XIX

Abstract

The computers programming activity has its origins preceding the existence of the machine itself. Taking as a starting point the invention of the french silkweaver Joseph-Marie Jacquard, who built in the beginning of the 19th Century a programmable loom, using punched-cards, this paper intends to show the relations between the loom mechanical programming activity and the actual computers programming. Through the analisis of articles published in important periodicals of the 19th Century, not yet explored in the history of information technology studies, we comment some debates and repercussions that followed Jacquard s invention. We also work with some modifications that occurred in that programmable machine, mainly in the area of punched-cards. Among others, we analyse the works of the british Charles Babbage in the 19th Century and Herman Hollerith at the end of 19th Century, seeking verification of how Jacquard s ideas spread when applied in other activities with no relation with the weaver s work. Therefore this paper intends to contribute for the history of information technology studies by the analisis of the origins of some concepts that still remain basics to this field of science nowadays