How Ada Lovelace Used Embroidery To Create The First Computer Program

credit: photo by Franco Folini on Flickr

The world's first computer programmer was born just shy of 200 years ago.

Ada Lovelace was born to poet Lord Byron and his wife, Anne Isabella Noel Byron, and grew up in a wealthy family in London.

She learned languages, music, and needlecraft, as well as math, from home tutors, reports the New York Times.

Lovelace went on to meet Charles Babbage, who designed the Analytical Engine, the first computer that can calculate Bernoulli numbers.

Lovelace translated an article about the Analytical Engine into English that she then translated into her computer program.

"Lovelace began by describing how to code instructions onto cards with punched holes, like those used for weaving loom, a device patented in 1804 that used punch cards to automate weaving patterns in the fabric," the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering & Technology explains.

"Having learned herself, Lovelace recognized that the numbers manipulated by the Analytical Engine could be seen as other types of symbols, such as other types of symbols, such as pitch and duration, and she had manipulated logical symbols in her correspondence with [London University mathematician Augustus] De Morgan," the library notes.

She also drew on lessons in math, music, and needlecraft for her computer program.

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