In this section, we are going to look at one of the first “complex” machines that required a code to be followed in order to get it to do what people wanted.
We found it a bit difficult to describe in words exactly what this machine did and how it worked, so we made a video presentation. It's roughly eight minutes long. Not exactly a Netflix binge fest, so hopefully you find it short and enjoyable.
So please make yourself comfortable and you watch the following video: (7:53)
Well done if you watched the whole thing. Jacquard's Loom was coding as its most fundamental, before electricity was invented, let alone computers. Although radically technological in its day, it is primitive by today's standards.
But it is precisely this simplicity, necessitated by the point in history it was created, that makes it the perfect illustration of when machines got complex enough to require instruction, because we can still understand how it worked.
The gap between how the machines worked and our understanding of them grew as they got more complex. Eventually they did cross a line where the inner workings became too complicated for any one person to understand them. With modern machines, each part is built by different teams of people who leave each other instructions on how to use their part. There's no longer one person who understands how everything works.
But it's important to understand that with modern day computers and phones, despite all appearances of being made of magical wizard sorcery, they are still machines, they are still mechanical, and you can still learn enough to tell them what to do.
To make you a bit more confident of this, we will spend a bit more time delving into the history. We'll take a look at how these types of machines slowly became more complicated, being able to do more while their insides became more mysterious, but still very much remaining machines.
Click the button below to move on to the next section, where we'll look at what became possible once electricity was thrown into our technological mix.