Automates-Jaquet-Droz-p1030493

A fascinating video about this automaton, a contemporary of Mozart, click here to watch him write.

A forerunner to today’s computers, it uses cam technology to control movements of hand and pen. Eyes follow the text being written and move to watch the pen when it is being filled with ink.

Designed and built by Pierre Jaaquet-Droz, his son Henri-Louis, and Jean-Frédéric Leschott. It was built to advertise Swiss watches to Europe’s nobility.

He now resides, along with a sister and brother, at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.