My local public library owns a computerized version of one of these, and I've been itching for a chance to use it for a full-scale project.
That said, based on my small amount of experimenting with it, I have to say I'm not surprised that the home models are hard to find anymore. They're a relic of a bygone era when home knitting was a means to an end, so having a tool to help you get to a specific practical outcome much more quickly was something a lot of people would be interested in already. And that, in turn, creates an opportunity to make products for the subset of that subset of people who still want to make it fancy.
But most knitters nowadays do it because they enjoy the physical process of knitting by hand. So tools like this arguably defeat the purpose of the hobby for a lot of people. The only person I've met who had any interest in actually owning one (instead of getting to play with someone else's, as I want to do) was a visual artist who happened to use textile as one of her media.
And now, in the Internet age, there are online services such Wildemasche that will do custom jacquard knits for you. Just upload a file with your pattern and they'll take care of the rest.
That said, based on my small amount of experimenting with it, I have to say I'm not surprised that the home models are hard to find anymore. They're a relic of a bygone era when home knitting was a means to an end, so having a tool to help you get to a specific practical outcome much more quickly was something a lot of people would be interested in already. And that, in turn, creates an opportunity to make products for the subset of that subset of people who still want to make it fancy.
But most knitters nowadays do it because they enjoy the physical process of knitting by hand. So tools like this arguably defeat the purpose of the hobby for a lot of people. The only person I've met who had any interest in actually owning one (instead of getting to play with someone else's, as I want to do) was a visual artist who happened to use textile as one of her media.
And now, in the Internet age, there are online services such Wildemasche that will do custom jacquard knits for you. Just upload a file with your pattern and they'll take care of the rest.