Tracker bar and Babbage’s Analytical Engine: what they have in common

1. Step 1. Tracker bar — is part of — Player piano. Holes let air through to the valves.
2. Step 2. Player piano — works like — Jacquard loom. A perforated medium controls a machine — a weaving one in one case, a musical one in the other.
3. Step 3. Jacquard loom — inspired — Babbage’s Analytical Engine. Babbage borrowed Jacquard’s punched cards directly for entering operations and data; Ada Lovelace compared the machine to the Jacquard loom.

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