The brilliancy of this counting tray lies in its amazing decimal system, which is another reason it’s still so popular.īesides that, it features a dot on top of every third rod that works as the thousands. Even though the total number of rods varies from 7 to 21, 23, 27, or 31, the total number is specifically always an odd number. It has one bead on each rod on the upper deck and four beads on each rod on the lower deck. In Japan, the modern Chinese Suanpan is Soroban, as Suanpan translates to Soroban in Japanese. Therefore, it is also called as the modern Suanpan. Soroban is a type of abacus or a counting tray that originated from the Chinese Suanpan back in the 14th century.
In the older models, the upper deck has two beads on each rod, and the lower deck has five beads on each rod. Generally, a suanpan is 20 cm tall and comes with 2 decks (upper deck and lower deck) and more than 7 rods. Originated as early as in 190 CE China, this counting frame was widely used in China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. Overall, I think the Chinese suanpan is the origin of the modern-day abacus. In addition, it followed a Greek calculating method.īetween the era of the Salamis Tablet and the Chinese suanpan, we have several other counting boards/devices, such as the Roman hand abacus, Khipu, and Exchequer. People used pebbles on various locations on the Salamis tablet to calculate. It’s a marble slate with 150 × 75 × 4.5 cm dimensions. The first of this kind is the Salamis tablet found on Salamis Island. However, as a matter of fact, the Roman abacus wasn’t the first of this kind of counting device. Although the abacus we know today resembles the Chinese suanpan, many consider the Roman hand abacus the original abacus. Honestly, the abacus history is debatable to some extent. It was so widely used that at one point near the 16th and 18th centuries, most business transactions by merchants and shopkeepers were done using the abacus calculator. This wonderful Chinese invention first traveled through Korea to Japan and Taiwan, then to Russia, and other parts of the world. They used stones instead of beads to move up and down the carved rows to calculate. Some communities also carved sections on a wooden surface and divided them into vertical and horizontal rows to calculate using this method. In the olden times, people used sticks, pebbles, and different seeds as an abacus. These dots/points are called House/Decimal points in an Abacus. There are little dots that appear on every third rod in a soroban/suanpan, which helps track your calculations. Similarly, the beads on the rods of lower deck are lower beads. If the abacus has two decks, then, the beads on the rods of the upper deck are upper beads. Beadsīeads are the little bi-conical shapes in the counting device made with wood, metal, or (previously) wool and pebbles. The bar is the horizontal rod in a suanpan or soroban that divides the vertical rods and makes two sections in the devices: upper deck and lower deck. Similarly, a rekenrek also has horizontal rods, but only two in number. The rods hold the beads in a counting frame and make the device appear divided into rows.Ī regular modern suanpan has 7 to 23, 27, or 31 (any odd number) vertical rods, and the current abacus model (Danish abacus) has 10 horizontal rows. However, the modern-day abacus used in most schools is made with a wooden frame. But a modern-day Japanese abacus has a metallic frame. Both the Chinese and Japanese abaci were made with wooden frames. But beginning with the Chinese version, we have a proper frame. The old versions were made by carving sections on wood. FrameĪ frame is the outer body of the counting device that holds together the other parts, such as the beads and the rods. In this section, I will tell you about the different parts of the abacus. While the earliest models were counting boards, the modern models are counting frames. An abacus is basically a counting device.
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