Abacus
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An abacus, also called a counting frame, is a hand-operated calculating tool which was used from ancient times, in the ancient Near East, Europe, China, and Russia, until largely replaced by handheld
An early photograph of the Salamis Tablet.
Copy of a Roman abacus
Use of an abacus, as illustrated in Margarita philosophica (1503)
Russian schoty
Soroban
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The soroban is an abacus developed in Japan. It is derived from the ancient Chinese suanpan, imported to Japan in the 14th century. Like the suanpan, the soroban is still used today, despite the proli
Abacus
…with India, allowing them to acquire the concept of zero and the decimal point from Indian merchants and mathematicians. In Japan, the abacus is called soroban (算盤, そろばん, lit. "counting tray"). It was imported from China in the 14th century. It was probably in use by the working class a century or more before…
A modern soroban. The right side of the soroban represents the number 1234567890, each column indicating one digit, with the lower beads representing "ones" and the upper beads "fives".
A suanpan (top) and a soroban (bottom). The two abaci seen here are of standard size and have thirteen rods each.
A dual soroban-calculator, Sharp Elsi Mate EL-8048 Sorokaru, produced from 1979
An abacus that uses colored sliders instead of beads. Red represents the value 5; green represents the value 1. The value in the abacus is 4025.