This mechanical writer can compose a text of forty signs

The Jaquet-Droz Writer draws a text thanks to a clockwork mechanism. Manufactured in La Chaux-de-Fonds between 1768 and 1774 with the other automata of the workshop, it has no electronic processor or modern computer language. Its movement is based on mechanical organs, including cams.

The Neuchâtel Museum describes it as programmable: it can write a text of forty signs on four lines. The Artist makes four different drawings, while the Musician plays five melodies on an organ. Each figure has its own possibilities.

First introduced in 1774, these automatons then traveled to Europe. Demonstrators could give the impression that the Writer was working under dictation, without explaining its mechanism. Prowess is real, but it does not imply that the figure understands what it writes: the meaning belongs to the chosen text and to those who read it.