Ahhh, pbf, you see you really should be with us on facebook as well
But yes, the looms are like large french knit dollies - BUT.... there are so many types out there!
You get the different sized round ones for tube knitting - hats, socks, mitts etc.
Then you get the straight wooden ones with an adjustable center bar, so you can do teeny baby socks right up to huge great monster socks..... then there's the even longer wooden ones that you can do shawls, jumpers, whatever.
I have a tadpole loom that I'm making a scarf on. It is wooden, about 16cm long with pins either side - basically, you wind the wool along the loom left to right then back again between alternate pins - looks like a huge criss cross of wool... then you hook the loops over all the way along both sides. The finished product looks a bit like a rib on both sides, but can't be pulled apart like a tube knit.
I've ordered a round set and I've also ordered a plastic straight set all together it should give me 9 different sizes.
Looking around on the loom sites, there's a host of different looping techniques that you can use - even cable! But I'm not that far into it just yet
It's just yet another method of craftwork that I'm learning & like I said, if I learn it now, then as I get older, it might well be the knitting style of choice later on.
I find when I knit now, sometimes my hands 'lock' and while it's not painful, it's a hindrance - mind, they do it sometimes when I'm doing other things, like chook plucking - maybe it's the early symptoms of arthritis?
Whatever it is, I'd like to find alternate ways of continuing to do the things that I love
I want o replace my metal knitting needles with wooden ones ... as they are better for the hands ... metal ones apprantly set up odd vibrations and not good if you have athritus... I saw some I really liked a while back coloured ones 
i have bamboo dpns now and was very surprised how cheap they are ... 
