• The Writer was created by watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz in the 1770s
• Mechanical boy can write a sentence of up to 40 characters
  
• It comprises 6,000 parts and 40 replaceable interior cams that dictate the words written - meaning the puppet can be 'programmed'
• Some believe The Writer is the great ancestor of the modern computer
  

By Suzannah Hills

PUBLISHED: 00:48 EST, 6 November 2013 | UPDATED: 05:33 EST, 6 November 2013

A clockwork puppet built 240 years ago was the first in the world to engineer the act of writing.

Designed to look like a small boy, the robot called The Writer was created by Swiss-born watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz in the 1770s.

It features a small, barefoot boy sat at a wooden desk holding a quill. When wound up the boy moves his arm to dip his quill in the ink pot and then writes a sentence of up to 40 characters.

The Writer comprises of approximately 6,000 parts and contains 40 replaceable interior cams that dictate the words written.

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The parts can be removed, replaced or reordered to allow the puppet to write any sentence required.

The Writer is thought by some to be an ancestor to the modern day computer and is one of the oldest surviving examples of an automaton and early cam technology.

Speaking on BBC Four’s documentary Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams, Professor Simon Schaffer describes the piece as 'one of the most remarkable realisations of cam technology'.

Adding: 'It's perhaps the world's most astonishing surviving automaton.

Jaquet-Droz was helped by his son Henri-Louis and Jean-Frédéric Leschot to complete his masterpiece.

Throughout his life, Jaquet-Droz lived in Paris, London, and Geneva, where he designed and built animated puppets to help his firm sell watches and mechanical birds.

His other famous works include The Musician, which has 2,500 pieces, and The Draughtsman, which consists of 2,000 pieces.

Jaquet-Droz's astonishing mechanisms fascinated the kings and emperors of Europe, China, India, and Japan.

His three key pieces, now known as the Jaquet-Droz automata, are housed at the art and history museum in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

He also once constructed a clock which was capable of surprising movements.

When the clock struck, the shepherd played six tunes on his flute and a dog approaches and fawns upon him.

This clock was exhibited to the King of Spain, who was delighted with it.

Jaquet-Droz told the king: 'The gentleness of my dog is his least merit; if your Majesty touch one of the apples, which you see in the shepherd's basket, you will admire the fidelity of this animal.'

The King took an apple, and the dog flew at his hand, and barked so loud, that the King's dog, which was in the room, began also to bark.

The Courtiers, believing the clock to be the work of witchcraft, hastily left the room, crossing themselves as they went out.

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