The person operating the abacus performs calculations in their head and uses the abacus as a physical aid to keep track of the sums, the carrys, etc. The abacus is a device, usually of wood (romans made them out of metal and they are made of plastic in modern times), having a frame that holds rods with freely-sliding beads mounted on them.īoth the abacus and the counting board are mechanical aids used for counting they are not calculators in the sense we use the word today. The counting board is a piece of wood, stone or metal with carved grooves or painted lines between which beads, pebbles or metal discs were moved. It is important to distinguish the early abacuses (or abaci) known as counting boards from the modern abaci. What is the difference between a counting board and an abacus? When the Hindu-Arabic number system came into use, abaci were adapted to use place-value counting.Ībaci evolved into electro-mechanical calculators, pocket slide-rules, electronic calculators and now abstract representations of calculators or simulations on smartphones. The abacus is one of many counting devices invented to help count large numbers.
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Various portable counting devices were invented to keep tallies. Merchants who traded goods needed a way to keep count (inventory) of the goods they bought and sold. Then, as even larger quantities (greater than ten fingers and toes could represent) were counted, various natural items like pebbles, sea shells and twigs were used to help keep count. The earliest counting device was the human hand and its fingers, capable of counting up to 10 things toes were also used to count in tropical cultures. It is difficult to imagine counting without numbers, but there was a time when written numbers did not exist. The abacus is one of many types of counting devices which are used to count large numbers.
Abacus is a Latin word that has its origins in the Greek words abax or abakon (meaning "table" or "tablet") which in turn, possibly originated from the Semitic word abq, meaning "sand".
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