The 

manoj abacus (plural abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool

that has been in use since ancient times and is still in use today. It was used in the ancient Near
East, Europe, China, and Russia, centuries before the adoption of the written Arabic numeral
system.[1] The exact origin of the abacus is unknown. The abacus essentially consists of a number of
rows of movable beads or other objects, which represent digits. One of two numbers is set up, and
the beads are manipulated to implement an operation involving a second number (e.g., addition), or
rarely a square or cubic root.
In earliest use the rows of beads could be loose on a flat surface, or sliding in grooves. Later the
beads were made to slide on rods of some sort built into a frame, allowing faster manipulation.
Abacuses are still made, often as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires. In the ancient world,
particularly before the introduction of positional notation, abacuses were a practical calculating tool.
There are distinctive modern implementations of the abacus. Some designs, like the bead frame
consisting of beads divided into tens, are used mainly to teach arithmetic, although they remain
popular in the post-Soviet states as a tool. Other designs, such as the Japanese soroban, have been
used for practical calculations even involving numbers of several digits. For any particular abacus
design, there are usually numerous different methods to perform calculations, which may include the
four basic operations, and also square and cube roots. Some of these methods work with non-
natural numbers (numbers such as 1.5 and 3⁄4).
Although today calculators and computers are usually used instead of abacuses, abacuses still
remain in common use in some countries. Merchants, traders and clerks in some parts of Eastern
Europe, Russia, China and Africa use abacuses, and they are still used to teach arithmetic to
children.[1] Some people who are unable to use a calculator because of visual impairment may use
an abacus.

Etymology[edit]
The use of the word abacus dates from before 1387 AD, when a Middle English work borrowed the
word from Latin to describe a sandboard abacus. The Latin word came from ancient
Greek ἄβαξ (abax) which means something without base, and improperly, any piece of rectangular
board or plank.[2][3][4] Alternatively, without reference to ancient texts on etymology, it has been
suggested that it means "a square tablet strewn with dust",[5] or "drawing-board covered with dust (for
the use of mathematics)"[6] (the exact shape of the Latin perhaps reflects the genitive form of the
Greek word, ἄβακoς abakos). While the table strewn with dust definition is popular, some disagree,
saying that it is not proven.[7][nb 1] Greek ἄβαξ itself is probably a borrowing of a Northwest Semitic
language, perhaps Phoenician, and cognate with the Hebrew word ʾābāq (‫)אבק‬, or “dust” (in post-
Biblical sense meaning "sand used as a writing surface").[8]
Both abacuses[9] and abaci[9] (soft or hard "c") are used as plurals. The user of an abacus is called
an abacist.[10]

History[edit]
Mesopotamian[edit]
The period 2700–2300 BC saw the first appearance of the Sumerian abacus, a table of successive
columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal number system.[11]
Some scholars point to a character in Babylonian cuneiform which may have been derived from a
representation of the abacus.[12] It is the belief of Old Babylonian[13] scholars such as Carruccio that
Old Babylonians "may have used the abacus for the operations of addition and subtraction; however,
this primitive device proved difficult to use for more complex calculations".[14]
Egyptian[edit]
The use of the abacus in Ancient Egypt is mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus, who writes
that the Egyptians manipulated the pebbles from right to left, opposite in direction to the Greek left-
to-right method. Archaeologists have found ancient disks of various sizes that are thought to have
been used as counters. However, wall depictions of this instrument have not been discovered.[15]

Persian[edit]
During the Achaemenid Empire, around 600 BC the Persians first began to use the abacus.[16] Under
the Parthian, Sassanian and Iranian empires, scholars concentrated on exchanging knowledge and
inventions with the countries around them – India, China, and the Roman Empire, when it is thought
to have been exported to other countries.

Greek[edit]
An early photograph of the Salamis Tablet, 1899. The original is marble and is held by the National Museum of
Epigraphy, in Athens.

The earliest archaeological evidence for the use of the Greek abacus dates to the 5th century BC.
[17]
 Also Demosthenes (384 BC–322 BC) talked of the need to use pebbles for calculations too
difficult for your head.[18][19] A play by Alexis from the 4th century BC mentions an abacus and pebbles
for accounting, and both Diogenes and Polybius mention men that sometimes stood for more and
sometimes for less, like the pebbles on an abacus.[19] The Greek abacus was a table of wood or
marble, pre-set with small counters in wood or metal for mathematical calculations. This Greek
abacus saw use in Achaemenid Persia, the Etruscan civilization, Ancient Rome and, until the French
Revolution, the Western Christian world.
A tablet found on the Greek island Salamis in 1846 AD (the Salamis Tablet), dates back to 300 BC,
making it the oldest counting board discovered so far. It is a slab of white marble 149 cm (59 in)
long, 75 cm (30 in) wide, and 4.5 cm (2 in) thick, on which are 5 groups of markings. In the center of
the tablet is a set of 5 parallel lines equally divided by a vertical line, capped with a semicircle at the
intersection of the bottom-most horizontal line and the single vertical line. Below these lines is a wide
space with a horizontal crack dividing it. Below this crack is another group of eleven parallel lines,
again divided into two sections by a line perpendicular to them, but with the semicircle at the top of
the intersection; the third, sixth and ninth of these lines are marked with a cross where they intersect
with the vertical line.[20] Also from this time frame the Darius Vase was unearthed in 1851. It was
covered with pictures including a "treasurer" holding a wax tablet in one hand while manipulating
counters on a table with the other.[18]

Chinese[edit]
Main article: Suanpan

A Chinese abacus (suanpan) (the number represented in the picture is 6,302,715,408)

Abacus
 Traditional Chinese 算盤

Simplified Chinese 算盘

Literal meaning "calculating tray"

showTranscriptions

The earliest known written documentation of the Chinese abacus dates to the 2nd century BC.[21]
The Chinese abacus, known as the suanpan (算盤/算盘, lit. "calculating tray"), is typically 20 cm
(8 in) tall and comes in various widths depending on the operator. It usually has more than seven
rods. There are two beads on each rod in the upper deck and five beads each in the bottom. The
beads are usually rounded and made of a hardwood. The beads are counted by moving them up or
down towards the beam; beads moved toward the beam are counted, while those moved away from
it are not.[22] One of the top beads is 5, while one of the bottom beads is 1. Each rod has a number
under it, showing the place value.The suanpan can be reset to the starting position instantly by a
quick movement along the horizontal axis to spin all the beads away from the horizontal beam at the
center.
The prototype of the Chinese abacus appeared during the Han Dynasty, and the beads are oval.
The Song Dynasty and earlier used the 1:4 type or four-beads abacus similar to the modern abacus
including the shape of the beads commonly known as Japanese-style abacus.[citation needed]
In the early Ming Dynasty, the abacus began to appear in the form of 1:5 abacus. The upper deck
had one bead and the bottom had five beads.[citation needed]
In the late Ming Dynasty, the abacus styles appeared in the form of 2:5.[citation needed] The upper deck had
two beads, and the bottom had five beads.
Various calculation techniques were devised for Suanpan enabling efficient calculations. There are
currently schools teaching students how to use it.
In the long scroll Along the River During the Qingming Festival painted by Zhang Zeduan during
the Song dynasty (960–1297), a suanpan is clearly visible beside an account book and doctor's
prescriptions on the counter of an apothecary's (Feibao).
The similarity of the Roman abacus to the Chinese one suggests that one could have inspired the
other, as there is some evidence of a trade relationship between the Roman Empire and China.
However, no direct connection can be demonstrated, and the similarity of the abacuses may be
coincidental, both ultimately arising from counting with five fingers per hand. Where the Roman
model (like most modern Korean and Japanese) has 4 plus 1 bead per decimal place, the
standard suanpan has 5 plus 2. Incidentally, this allows use with a hexadecimal numeral system (or
any base up to 18) which may have been used for traditional Chinese measures of weight. (Instead
of running on wires as in the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese models, the beads of Roman model
run in grooves, presumably making arithmetic calculations much slower.
Another possible source of the suanpan is Chinese counting rods, which operated with a decimal
system but lacked the concept of zero as a place holder. The zero was probably introduced to the
Chinese in the Tang dynasty (618–907) when travel in the Indian Ocean and the Middle East would
have provided direct contact with India, allowing them to acquire the concept of zero and the decimal
point from Indian merchants and mathematicians.

Roman[edit]
Main article: Roman abacus
Copy of a Roman abacus

The normal method of calculation in ancient Rome, as in Greece, was by moving counters on a
smooth table. Originally pebbles (calculi) were used. Later, and in medieval Europe, jetons were
manufactured. Marked lines indicated units, fives, tens etc. as in the Roman numeral system. This
system of 'counter casting' continued into the late Roman empire and in medieval Europe, and
persisted in limited use into the nineteenth century.[23] Due to Pope Sylvester II's reintroduction of the
abacus with modifications, it became widely used in Europe once again during the 11th century[24]
[25]
 This abacus used beads on wires, unlike the traditional Roman counting boards, which meant the
abacus could be used much faster.[26]
Writing in the 1st century BC, Horace refers to the wax abacus, a board covered with a thin layer of
black wax on which columns and figures were inscribed using a stylus.[27]
One example of archaeological evidence of the Roman abacus, shown here in reconstruction, dates
to the 1st century AD. It has eight long grooves containing up to five beads in each and eight shorter
grooves having either one or no beads in each. The groove marked I indicates units, X tens, and so
on up to millions. The beads in the shorter grooves denote fives –five units, five tens etc., essentially
in a bi-quinary coded decimal system, related to the Roman numerals. The short grooves on the
right may have been used for marking Roman "ounces" (i.e. fractions).

Indian[edit]
The Abhidharmakośabhāṣya of Vasubandhu (316-396), a Sanskrit work on Buddhist philosophy,
says that the second-century CE philosopher Vasumitra said that "placing a wick (Sanskrit vartikā)
on the number one (ekāṅka) means it is a one, while placing the wick on the number hundred means
it is called a hundred, and on the number one thousand means it is a thousand". It is unclear exactly
what this arrangement may have been. Around the 5th century, Indian clerks were already finding
new ways of recording the contents of the Abacus.[28] Hindu texts used the term śūnya (zero) to
indicate the empty column on the abacus.[29]