When you evaluate a computer not just by its outer casing and display, but fundamentally as a machine that accepts directions, performs actions automatically, and delivers results, a contender for the title of oldest computer might emerge that doesn’t date back to the 20th century at all.
An ancient silk loom made more than 2,000 years ago during the Western Han Dynasty could be considered such a device, according to the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST).
This is the so-called ti hua ji, a figured loom discovered in 2012 by archaeologists in Chengdu in a tomb dating back to around 150 BC. According to CAST , its main feature is its “programmed” operation . This function was performed by physical cards or “pattern books,” which specified which longitudinal threads of the warp should be lifted at each point of the pattern. Essentially, it is an ancient version of software, made only with wire, bamboo, and wood.
CAST describes the principle in almost computer-like terms. A raised warp thread corresponds to a 1, a lowered warp thread corresponds to a 0. If we imagine the weaving process as a code, the pattern becomes a sequence of 0s and 1s, the same binary logic that underpins modern computing. In a video posted on the organization’s social media on December 27, the machine is directly described as “the oldest known computing hardware,” equipped with its own ” software ,” a set of programming patterns.
According to CAST, the machine was more than just a masterpiece of elegance: it was an extremely complex mechanism for its time . It used 10,470 longitudinal threads, and its “programming” was determined by 86 brown control elements that formed over 9.6 million intersections with the transverse weft threads. Once adjusted, the machine could simultaneously operate a large number of actuators and produce fabrics with perfectly repeatable patterns without improvisation or manual adjustments.
The CAST text also highlights the historical context. Before the advent of such looms, patterns had to be ” assembled ” manually: the weaver would lift the right threads at the right time to pass them over a shuttle with different colored threads. This required a great deal of time and a high level of skill, so mechanization was not just a convenience, but an advantage that helped China become the world’s center of silk production.
A separate thread in this story concerns the westward evolution of technology. CAST argues that weaving techniques spread along the Silk Road, and that, in the Middle Ages, workshops with similar looms operated in European cities. Later, in 1805, the Frenchman Joseph Marie Jacquard created his automatic punched-card loom, and it was this idea— controlling the machine via a “readable” pattern— that became one of the symbols of the industrial age and the coming computerization.
CAST makes no secret of the fact that it’s not just an ancient art, but also a contemporary debate on technological primacy . The organization calls the recognition of the Chengdu machine as a “protocomputer” a step toward reconsidering the history of computing from a non-European perspective, especially considering China’s current role in 5G, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
At the same time, CAST doesn’t dispute the classical dating of electronic computers: the text mentions the ENIAC, completed in 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania. It also mentions Zhu Chuanjiu, a member of that team, who is credited with contributing to the machine’s logical structure, and notes that some researchers link binary thinking and early ideas about programmability to older Chinese traditions, including interpretations of the I Ching.
However, CAST’s main thesis is simpler: the principles of programmability, automation, and information encoding may have been mastered much earlier than commonly believed; they simply resembled a loom more than a computing machine.
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