And it's not mere coincidence that one of the first programmable machines was a loom that took paper-tape instructions, in the year 1725. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basile_Bouchon
Right. And Herman Hollerith (of IBM fame) took punched cards, that were mainstream in the textile industry, and used it to create the "tabulating machine", the computer used to streamline the US census.
And it's not mere coincidence that one of the first programmable machines was a loom that took paper-tape instructions, in the year 1725. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basile_Bouchon