🌊 Ripple · counterfactual
What if the Jacquard loom had gone differently?
1804 · france
Punched cards control a loom's pattern, the first program stored outside a human head.
If it had gone differently: The punched card is never invented; computing loses its oldest idea and its first physical form.
What it set up
- 1945The first electronic computers, Calculation stays the work of human "computers" with desk machines; the information age has no engine to run on.
- 1958The integrated circuit, Electronics stay built from discrete parts, wired by hand; the computer never leaves the air-conditioned room.
- 1977The personal computer, Computers stay institutional machines; there is no home computing, no software industry, no user base for a web.
Want to actually pull the lever? Play today's Ripple →