The Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom, invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801, which used the holes punched in pasteboard punched card corresponded to one row of the design and the cards were strung together in order. It was based on earlier inventions by the Frenchmen Basile Bouchon (1725), Jean Falcon (1728) and Jacques Vaucanson (1740) http://www.coe.uh.edu/courses/cuin7317/students/museum/slong.html.