Jacquard loom showing the punched cards carrying the pattern instructions. These were strips of pasteboard - or sometimes tin - 304-608mm long by 50-75mm wide, with perforations t.35 in diameter. A card was needed for each weft thread of a pattern and, although 400-800 cards were normally used, patterns needing 24,000 were sometimes worked. From Louis Figuier Les Grandes Inventions, Paris, 1863.