A little over three hundred years ago Joseph Marie Jacquard invented a way to weave richly patterned fabric using punch cards.  These patterns could be changed with new punch cards.  This made it different from the high volume fixed pattern looms also being developed at the same time.  Jacquard's loom pointed the way to industrialization based on flexible specialization instead of rigid mechanization.  Over time, the less flexible looms out competed punch card looms on price and volume.  Rigi...