Illustration depicting Joseph-Marie Charles Jacquard (July 7, 1752 - August 7, 1834), a French weaver and merchant. He played an important role in the development of the earliest programmable loom (the Jacquard loom), which in turn played an important role in the development of other programmable machines, such as computers. The Jacquard Loom is a mechanical loom that has holes punched in pasteboard, each row of which corresponds to one row of the design. Multiple rows of holes are punched on each card and the many cards that compose the design of the textile are strung together in order. This image has been color enhanced.