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Jacquard's Web: How a Hand-loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age
 
 
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Jacquard's Web: How a Hand-loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age (Hardcover)

by James Essinger (Author) "If you wanted to be part of the scientific and literary set in the London of the 1840s, you would have done just about anything..." (more)
4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press; illustrated edition edition (28 Oct 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0192805770
  • ISBN-13: 978-0192805775
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.2 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 421,524 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review
An entertaining and illuminating exercise in making connections between apparently disparate scientific endeavours. TLS

TLS
"An entertaining and illuminating exercise in making connections between apparently disparate scientific endeavours."

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Inside This Book (Learn More)
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First Sentence
If you wanted to be part of the scientific and literary set in the London of the 1840s, you would have done just about anything to beg, steal, or borrow an invitation to one of Charles Babbage's famous soirees. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.9 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars a Victorian computer revolution....., 30 Nov 2004
No one could read the first chapter of this book and not finish it. In fact, I've just spent the past two days devouring it from start to finish. It's an entertaining fact-filled romp through the entire history of something that dominates our lives, and that we always think of as entirely modern... and yet the history this book traces goes back nearly 5,000 years.

What I liked best about it was the teasingly thought-provoking idea the author raises: that our computer age could have started over 150 years ago in Victorian England...

According to Jacquard's Web, the Victorian scientist Charles Babbage spent a lifetime building and refining metal calculating cogwheel machines or 'engines' as Babbage called them. The working portions of the Engines he built worked perfectly. As Babbage's friend and colleague Ada Lovelace once said, it was the first time in history that 'wheelwork' had been taught 'to think'. But funding ran out and Babbage died never seeing his calculating engines come to fruition.

What I found so incredibly thought-provoking in this book was that in London in 1991 a perfectly working Difference Engine was built from Charles Babbage's plans and drawings. I have seen the Difference Engine in action myself (as the white-gloved engineer cranks the handle, the stacked columns of cogwheels spiral and coalesce beautifully as they perform their mathematical calculations) but I hadn't realised the significance at the time.

According to the author, James Essinger, if Babbage had found the funding to complete his Engines, computers could have come into widespread use in the nineteenth century. Now if that isn't a thought-provoking idea I don't know what is!

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Jacquard's Web, 21 Oct 2004
By Mr. R. R. Bolt - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This book is a brilliant example of what a winning formula genuine enthusiasm - together with an ability to convey that enthusiasm on the printed page, and a thorough grasp of the subject - can be. It is evident from the first page that James Essinger has done his homework. The book bears all the hallmarks of extensive, painstaking and well-directed research. Too often with biographies we feel that the author is simply going through the motions for the sake of pickng up another fat advance, but nothng could be further from the truth here. And in his choice of subject Mr Essinger has come up with a second winning combination: namely, a very important subject who is relatively little known in this country or, it is probably safe to assume, elsewhere. The subject - what was the effectively the dawn of computerised manufacturing - is a hugely important and gripping one. Here we have a story of genius and determination overcoming numerous obstacles to emerge triumphant. It is the stuff of Hollywood, and in this writer's hands its potential to inform and entertain is realised to the full.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars From weaving to computing, 20 Oct 2004
Jacquard's Web is a most enjoyable insight into the history of the computer.The book brings to life the struggles that faced the inventors who dreamt hand-looms could one day evolve into the personal computer.

One of the best things about his book is that it is very easy to read. As well as charting the development of the machine that I am writing this review on at this very moment, you are introduced to (through the author James Essinger) the people who worked so hard to make the computer the amazing machine it is today.

This book will appeal to everyone, regardless of whether you have a direct interest in the subject or not. I read the book having no knowledge of the subject at all and I found it fascinating. Anyone with a passion for beautifully written books will be entertained from cover to cover. A truly enjoyable book.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars No difference
This is a really interesting and entertaining book. It is a combination of scientific explanation and biography linking Jacquard, Babbage, Hollerith and Aiken. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Gaius Baltar

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating insight into a little-known revolutionary machine
This is an amazing story of how a machine that was designed to allow the production of intricately woven material became the forerunner of modern computers... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Fred

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but slightly sketchy at times
The first two thirds of this book is well worth reading, and overall, I agree with the above reviews. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Dannydorko

5.0 out of 5 stars Computers in Victorian times......
No one could read the first chapter of this book and not finish it. In fact, I've just spent the past two days devouring it from start to finish. Read more
Published on 26 May 2007 by Heli

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and Fun
As a fan of science and technology literature accessible to the layman I found this book absolutely superb. Read more
Published on 28 Nov 2006 by Romaine Billows

5.0 out of 5 stars computing made fascinating
As the least technologically-minded person I know I bought this book because I wanted to find out what computers really are and how they've come to dominate our lives today. Read more
Published on 30 Nov 2004

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