Vintage Chinese Abacus in Black Wooden frame

Though ancient people weren’t able to have the technology that we today, they however were as innovative as we are right now. In China for example, the idea of calculators, computers, and other computing machines had been seen in the earliest form of counting device they had (apart from the fingers people have), known to modern people as the abacus.

When was exactly abacus created?

So for the record, the existence of Chinese abacus can be dated back from the 14 century A.D. And since Chinese are known to relate their way of like to its environment the attributes such as the top and bottom are considered heaven and earth respectively.

What is an abacus actually made of?

This form of computing device was created using wood and beads. Since Chinese abacus was very handy, it was no surprise that it was successfully proliferated in other countries ever since they learn the power of the tool which was made out of simplicity yet very effective in doing arithmetic processes.

The suànpán or the Chinese counting frame was a 20-centimeter in height and its width since it depends on the preference of the user. The typical suànpán had more than seven rods wherein two beads are on each rod in the higher deck and five beads in the bottom for decimal and hexadecimal calculation.

How does Chinese abacus work?

The counting of the beads or the computation is done by moving each bead in either up and down manner towards the beam. You compute the value of something you are counting when you move the beads higher and you do not count the value when you move the beads down. More so in resetting the tool, the abacist or the abacus user executes a quick shaking of the suànpán along the horizontal axis to move all the beads away the center of the horizontal beam.

The truth is, suànpán was built to handle operations like division, addition, multiplication, subtraction, and even square root and cube root. This shows the concept that a simple idea can manifest complexities in its usage. Though it can not do what calculators do, it can serve its purpose in many ways like accounting animals they killed and recording and storing details they gathered in computing.

More Interesting Facts to Know about the Chinese Abacus

Chinese are known as entrepreneurs and good traders, and these traits were seen in the similarity of the Roman abacus to suànpán which can possibly give us the idea that the trade relationship between China and Rome is as old as the existence of abacus. The Chinese abacus had been “commercialized”, as what modern people can think of since it travelled to Korea and spread its influence in 1400 A.D. where it was called apparently with different names such as jupan, supan, or jusan.

Note: Due to the age of this item, the brass fittings has a slightly oxidised which does not spoil the apperance of the item. "authentic item"