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Pierre Jacquet-Droz ( 1721- 1790) was a Swiss-born watchmaker of the late eighteenth century. He lived in Paris, London, and Geneva, where he designed and built animated dolls, or automata, to help his firm sell watches and mechanical birds. Constructed between 1768 and 1774 by Pierre Jaquet-Droz, his son Henri-Louis ( 1752- 1791), and Jean-Frederic Leschot ( 1746- 1824) were The Writer (made of 6000 pieces), The Musician (2500 pieces) and The Draughtsman (2000 pieces).
His astonishing mechanisms fascinated the world's most important people: the kings and emperors of Europe, China, India and Japan.
Some consider these devices to be the oldest examples of the computertower of a personal computer. A computer is a device for making calculations or controlling operations that are expressible in numerical or logical terms. While factually accurate, this definition and those found in other dictionaries are so broad that th. The Writer has an input device to set tabs that form a programmable memory, 40 cams that represents the read only program, and a quill pen for output. The work of Pierre Jacquet-Droz predates that of Charles BabbageCharles Babbage ( December 26 1791 October 18 1871) was an English mathematician, analytical philosopher and (proto-) computer scientist who was the first person to come up with the idea of a programmable computer. Parts of his uncompleted mechanisms are by decades.
The automata of Jaquet-Droz are also considered to be some of the finest examples of human mechanical problem solving.
The three surviving dolls are housed at the art and history museum in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
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Jacquet-Droz, Pierre
Jacquet-Droz, Pierre
