The abacus is a kind of calculator that was used in ancient Chinese civilization (as early as the year 500 B.C.). The abacus can be used to do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It does not have batteries, but you can be just as fast in finding the answer with an abacus as you are with a calculator!!
The beads in the column at the far right are in the ones column, the beads that are in the column next to the far right are in the tens column, etc. As you move left in the columns, you move from ones, to tens, to hundreds, to thousands, and so on.
Beads are considered counted when they have been slid towards the horizontal bar. This means that the upper beads are counted when they are slid down towards the bar, and the lower beads are counted when they are slid up towards the bar.
The beads each have a value determined by where they are on the abacus. Beads found in the upper deck each have a value of five. The beads on the lower deck each have a value of one.
Place value is also important.
An important thing to note is that in order to use the abacus, it has to be sitting on a flat surface.
More advanced calculations (decimals and fractions) can also be done by designing a space between two columns as the decimal point, then adjusting what the place values are.
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