The Abacus — Beads, rods and frames
Abak, abax, and all the rest The roots of the name Abacus are not clear. The word originated in ancient Europe. Since Abaci are used in many countries today, many names have evolved since then. Here are some of them:
- China: Suan Pan
- Japan: Soroban
- Korea: Tschu Pan
- Vietnam: Ban Tuan or Ban Tien
- Taiwan: ???
- Iran: Chortgeh
- Armenia: Choreb
- Russia: Stschoty
- Estonia: ???
- Lithuania: ???
- Poland: Liczydlo
- Turkey: Coulba
Software for learning, training, and fun
- AbacusWorks — An abacus software
- myAnzan — An anzan software (training mental calculation)
- NumDict — a number and exercise dictation program
Some resources
- Japanese for Abacists (PDF, 0.5MB). This document is a draft version. It intends to help understand some basic written Japanese with respect to the words and phrases that occur when dealing with Japanese bead calculation (wasan).
- A Korean abacus grandmaster (PDF file). This is the English translation of an article originally from a German magazine.
- Calculation and neagative numbers. How to use negative numbers on a soroban.