But Ada cannot read my thoughts, and without any thought of her own she spread her drawings across my knees, showing me the workings of what Babbage calls the Analytical Engine. It can be instructed – programmed, she says is the correct term – by using the card-punch system of the jacquard loom. Whereas the loom-cards instruct on the design of flower patterns on the cloth, the machine-cards are a mathematical language. But essentially this works as does a loom.
