India, Oct. 24 -- Joseph-Marie Jacquard was in his fifties when he invented the Jacquard machine.

The son of a master weaver, he apprenticed as a weaver, served as a bookbinder, hatmaker, type-founder and soldier.

In his late forties, he started tinkering with looms in his home city of Lyon, then the weaving capital of France, making improvements, until he built one he thought was worthy of being exhibited at France's prestigious annual industrial exhibition in Paris, in 1801.

Jacquard's machine won the bronze medal, and he was summoned to the French National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts. There he saw a version that suggested how his machine could be improved, and by 1804, the Jacquard loom was born.

It was the first machine to sep...