Abacus Abacus is a Latin word meaning sand tray.

The word originates with the Arabic "abq", which means dust or fine sand. In Greek this would become abax or abakon which means table or tablet.

Probably, the first device was the counting board. This appeared at various times in several places around the world. The earliest counting boards consisted of a tray made of sun dried clay or wood. A thin layer of sand would be spread evenly on the surface, and symbols would be drawn in the sand with a stick or ones finger. To start anew, one would simply shake the tray or even out the sand by hand. Eventually, the use of sand was abandoned. Instead, pebbles were used, and placed in parallel grooves carved into stone counting boards. The oldest surviving counting board is the Salamis tablet, used by the Babylonians circa 300 B.C. It was discovered in 1846 on the island of Salamis. It is made of white marble and is in the National Museum of Epigraphy, Athens.

The old counting board the salamis tablet.

Later the counting material changed. Marble was used by the Greeks, bronze by the Romans.

Ancient Times: The Salamis Tablet, the Roman Calculi and Hand-abacus are from the period c. 300 B.C to c. 500 A.D.

In the quest of an easy portable counting device, the romans invented the hand abacus.

The front and back view of the roman hand abacus. Image is from Museo Nazionale Ramano at Piazzi delle Terme, Rome. The Roman abacus was introduced in China during the Christian era by the trading merchants.

Middle ages: In the Middle ages, counting tables were quite common throughout Europe. In France, the counting pebbles were called jetons inspiring this little rhyme. The courtiers are the counters Their worth depends on their place In favor, they're in the millions And in the zeros when in disgrace

Middle Ages: The Apices, the coin-board and the Line-board are from the period c. 5 A.D. to c. 1400 A.D.

Wood was the primary material from which counting boards were manufactured; the orientation of the beads switched from vertical to horizontal. As arithmetic (counting using written numbers) gained popularity in the latter part of the Middle Ages, the use of the abacus began to diminish in Europe.

Modern times:

Modern Times: The Suan-pan, the Soroban and the Schoty are from the period c. 1200 A.D to the present.

During the 11th century, the Chinese abacus, or suan pan, was invented. The suan pan is generally regarded as the earliest abacus with beads on rods. The Mandarin term suan pan means calculating plate. A suan pan has 2 beads above a middle divider called a beam (a.k.a. reckoning bar) and 5 beads below.

A modern Chinese abacus. The "suan-pan" was used as early as the 12th century. The number represented is 27091. Each upper bead has a value of five of its order and each lower bead the value of one of its order. Often employed in Chinese laundries

The abacus, or soroban as it is called in Japan, is one of the first objects that strongly attracts the attention of the foreigner in Japan. When he buys a few trifling articles at some store, he soon notices that the tradesman does not perplex himself with mental arithmetic, but instead seizes his soroban, prepare it by a tilt and a rattling sweep of his hand, and after a deft manipulation of rapid clicks, reads off the price. It is true that the Japanese tradesman often uses his board and beads even when the problem is simple

enough to be done in one's head, but this is only because the use of the abacus has become a habit with him. If he tried, he could no doubt easily add 37 and 48 in his head. But such is the force of habit that he does not try to recognize the simplicity of any problem; instead, following the line of least resistance, he adjusts his soroban for manipulation, and begins clicking the beads, thus escaping any need of mental effort. - Excerpted from the book, "The Japanese Abacus, Its Use and Theory", by Takashi Kojima, Charles E. Tuttle
Company Inc. 1954, reprint 1987. ISBN: 0-8048-0278-5

Abaci are still in use today. They have been invaluable for many visually impaired individuals, as teaching number placement value and calculations can be done by feel.

An exciting contest between the Japanese abacus and the electric calculating machine was held in Tokyo on November 12, 1946, under the sponsorship of the U. S. Army newspaper, the Stars and Stripes. In reporting the contest, the Stars and Stripes remarked: "The machine age tool took a step backward yesterday at the Emie Pyle Theater as the abacus, centuries old, dealt defeat to the most up-to-date electric machine now being used by the United States Government...The abacus victory was decisive." The Nippon Times reported the contest as follows:
"Civilization, on the threshold of the atomic age, tottered Monday afternoon as the 2,000-year-old abacus beat the electric calculating machine in adding, subtracting, dividing and a problem including all three with multiplication thrown in, according to UP. Only in multiplication alone did the machine triumph..."
Source: http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/abacus-contest.html