Abacus: The oldest ancestor of the modern computer

First developed Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia in 2500 BCE, an abacus is a device user for counting and making arithmetical calculations. The etymology of the term "abacus" - which comes from Semitic languages in which the noun abaq means "dust" - has given rise to the theory that the original abacuses were flat boards covered with sand, on which numbers could be written and then erased.

From its ancient origins, the abacus eventually spread to Greece: a marble tablet, 5 feet(150 cm) long and 2 feet 6 inches (75 cm) wide, from the Greek island of Salamis, made in around 300 BCE, is the oldest counting board that has so far been discovered. The abacus then reached Rome and China.

"Learning how to use the abacus can help to improve concentration [and] memory." ---Paul Green, How to Use a Chinese Abacus (2007)

Over time, it developed from a shallow sandbox into its now familiar form: a frame across which are stretched several wires, each with a number of beads that can be slid from end to end of each wire. Each row of beads represents a different value: one row is typically units, another tens, another hundreds.

In around 700 CE, the Hindus developed an innovative numeral system with place values and zeros that made counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division easier than ever before to carry out in writing. This new idea caught on with the Arabs, who introduced it into Europe in around 1000 CE. From then on, abacuses were used less frequently in the West, although even today they remain common sights in China, Japan, and parts of Western Asia, where the best operators can keep place with people using pocket calculators.

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Source:
"1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think"
-- by Robert Arp.