Selecting the cords by a perforated paper roll (Bouchon)

1725 Knowledge infrastructure instrument

Share

An attachment to the figured loom in which the selection of cords is set by holes in a paper roll: a row of needles presses against the roll, and wherever there is no hole the needle pushes the hook aside and the cord is raised. The carrier of the design becomes a thing that can be made in advance and handed on: the record comes apart from the one who executes it.

The device was built in 1725 by the Lyon journeyman Basile Bouchon; the mechanism itself, according to Norman's reference work, he took from musical automata controlled by pegged cylinders.

The roll was continuous, its rows could not be reordered or replaced one at a time, and an assistant was still needed.

Why this date

The year 1725 follows Britannica, which dates Basile Bouchon's device directly, and the HistoryofInformation reference work, which names Lyon and the descent from the craft of musical automata. No patent or printed publication by Bouchon himself was found, so the date rests on two secondary sources that agree on the year.

What it grew from

• The grande tire drawloom: the design as a set of cords and the work of the drawboy

  improved · Confidence: high

  Bouchon built no new loom but added his device to the mechanical drawboy already working on the figured loom: the perforated roll took the place of the person who selected the cords.

  Link sources

  • Britannica, «Textile: Horizontal frame looms» Verified 20 Sep 2026

    In 1725 Basile Bouchon added to the mechanical drawboy a mechanism that selected the cords to be drawn to form the pattern.

  • Britannica, «Textile: Horizontal frame looms» Verified 20 Sep 2026

    The drawloom was improved in Italy and France in the early 17th century by the addition of a type of mechanical drawboy, allowing the assistant to stand on the floor at the side of the loom and increasing the control of the cords.

  • Britannica, «Textile: Horizontal frame looms» Verified 20 Sep 2026

    The continued inconvenience of employing an assistant, however, who might also make errors, led to a search for an automatic mechanism that would perform all the work of the drawboy.

  "Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.

What grew out of it

• The punched card as a separate row of the design, laced into an endless chain

  improved · Confidence: medium

  Three years later Bouchon's continuous roll was replaced by a chain of separate cards: the same machine, but the record became divisible and reorderable.

  Dispute: The disagreement is not about the link but about attribution: Britannica dates the improvement to 1728 yet names no author at all, while the name Falcon comes from the catalogue of the Musée des Arts et Métiers and from Norman's reference work. No primary document (a patent, a privilege, a printed description) could be checked.

  Link sources

  • Norman J. «Basile Bouchon Begins the Automation of the Weaving Process», HistoryofInformation.com Verified 20 Sep 2026

    In order to make the input of instructions to the loom more flexible, in 1728 Jean-Baptiste Falcon substituted a chain of punched paper cards for the perforated paper tape employed by his colleague Basile Bouchon.

  • Britannica, «Textile: Horizontal frame looms» Verified 20 Sep 2026

    The mechanism was improved in 1728 by increasing the number of needles and using a rectangular perforated card for each individual shedding motion, the cards being strung together in an endless chain.

  "Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.

• A figured-weaving loom without a drawboy (Vaucanson)

  influenced · Confidence: high

  The same catalogue entry names Bouchon among Vaucanson's predecessors; the continuous carrier of the record returned in Vaucanson as a perforated cylinder.

  Dispute: The path from Bouchon to Vaucanson also runs through Falcon, so a direct influence partly repeats it. It is named separately because the source lists both predecessors by name, and because what Vaucanson took from Bouchon was the continuous carrier rather than the card: the cylinder is closer to the roll of 1725 than to the chain of 1728.

  Link sources

  • Musée des Arts et Métiers (CNAM), «Métier à tisser les étoffes façonnées de Vaucanson destiné à remplacer l'ancien métier à la tire» Verified 20 Sep 2026

    il perfectionne les métiers à cartes perforées de Basile Bouchon et Jean-Baptiste Falcon, encore tributaires de l'intervention humaine.

  • Rojas L. «Promouvoir l'innovation technique: le cas des métiers à tisser du musée des Arts et Métiers», ethnographiques.org, № 24, 2012 (2012) Verified 20 Sep 2026

    tentative de mécanisation de Jean-Baptiste de Gennes, commande mécanique de Basile Bouchon et cartons perforés de Falcon

  "Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.

Node sources

• Britannica, «Textile: Horizontal frame looms» Verified 20 Sep 2026

  In 1725 Basile Bouchon added to the mechanical drawboy a mechanism that selected the cords to be drawn to form the pattern.

• Norman J. «Basile Bouchon Begins the Automation of the Weaving Process», HistoryofInformation.com Verified 20 Sep 2026

  In 1725 Basile Bouchon of Lyon, the son of an organ maker, adapted the concept of musical automata controlled by pegged cylinders to the repetitive task of weaving. He invented a loom that was controlled by perforated paper tape.

"Verified" means that on that day the quotation was found at the address given, word for word. No date means we have not been able to open the source yet, not that the quotation is wrong.

Open this node on the map