Oh, thanks for that! Didn't know about it. Also related to weaving equipment, makes perfect sense.
Yes, it's earlier, but it doesn't count. Vaucanson didn't make the leap from automaton to machine, or if he did he didn't write anything about it:
"When, by the division of labor, each particular operation has been simplified to the use of a single instrument, the linking up of all these instruments, set in motion by a single engine, constitutes — a machine."
“union of all these tools, actuated by one moving power”.
(from Babbage 1835)
That and memory. Way ahead of his time. Babbage has a large part in Gibson's (and someone else's) book The Difference Engine, and Babbage's nemesis is none other than, you guessed it, KM.
Jonathan
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I thought we were talking capitalism, excluding pre-capitalist social formations. What about Vaucanson's automata? They're older than Babbage, don't they count?
Ian
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