Ubiquitous - Abacus

Elvin Setiawan s3115089


World History

Abacus
For many year abacus is the first object used as a calculator, often constructed as a wooden frame with beads sliding on wires. Many cultures are known to have used similar tools. It is known to have first existed in Mesopotamia and China and it was invented between 1000 BS and 500 BC. The use of the word abacus dates from before 1387, when a Middle English worker borrowed the word from Latin to describe a sand board abacus.

An early mechanical calculator whose design has evolved through the centuries, with two styles in use today. Both the Chinese and the Japanese styles consist of a frame with a crossbeam. They may be made from many different materials, such as wood or brass. Rods or wires carrying sliding beads extend vertically through the crossbeam. The Chinese suan pan has two beads above the beam on each rod and five beads below. Each rod of the Japanese soroban carries one bead above and four below.

In working with whole numbers, the rightmost rod represents the ones position, with each rod to the left representing the tens, hundreds, thousands, and so forth, respectively. The beads below the crossbeam represent one of that rod's units (that is, a one, a ten, a hundred, and so forth), and those above represent five. Beads are moved from the outer position toward the crossbeam when used to represent a number (see illustration).

Digital Calculator
The idea of digital calculator comes from the abacus. William Oughtred invented the slide rule in 1622 and was revealed by his student Richard Delamain in 1630. Then it was developed further by a list of people. In early 1970, it was Casio who created the first digital calculator.

The difference between abacus and digital calculator is; some digital calculator can’t take billions which an abacus can. When people look at a digital calculator, they know how to use it straight away which this is case does not happen to abacus, people have to learn the basic knowledge of how to use an abacus. Because a digital calculator contains numbers 0 to 9, an abacus only contains beads sliding on wires.

Family History

Back then 1941, my grandfather used to do his business along with his abacus. He bought his abacus in Shanghai, China. He used to work in a small pharmacy selling Chinese medicine and used the abacus to count the amount of medicine and money. The income of this shop is just enough to fulfill his family daily needs. At the time he wanted a bigger house and a car. He had bigger ambitions in his life which he couldn’t conquer with this amount of money. So he decided to migrate to Indonesia to open his new business.

In 1943 two years before Indonesia became independent, he arrived in Indonesia. Back then Indonesia was colonies with Japan. He opened another small pharmacy in Batu Raja, Sumatra Island (West of Java Island). This is the part of the story where my dad gives his best guess, because my dad wasn’t born at that time he was the 2nd child so he missed some detail of the things that my grandpa did. His best guess is that Grandpa got his luck from the colonies, because a lot of people got hurt and were buying medicine from my grandpa.

He started palm oil business along with the abacus, a few years after Indonesian independence (1945). Palm oil business was doing great at that time. A lot of people get rich by doing this business. After he got the rite amount of money for funding a new business, He opened; an ice cube factory, bamboo chopstick factory, and a boat factory. Believe it or not he still used his abacus. Until the early 1970 he started to do his business with a digital calculator. The reason that he changed abacus is because digital calculator is simpler and easy to carry. I believe the first digital calculator was expensive, incomparable with todays.

Around the 1980 he open a liquid gas factory and land property business but this time the abacus stayed behind in the storeroom. Dad told me; somehow he always carried his digital calculator in his pocket everywhere he goes. I have a good memory in my head before he passed away, he still carried it, I guess it became a habit of him.

The abacus stayed in the storeroom for quite some time. After my grandpa retired, he loved to renovate his house since he got nothing to do. He created this room to put the entire antique object he ever used such as old fashion Iron. This iron doesn’t produce heat from electricity, it produce heat from red hot coal to straight up fabric. So the coal must be put into the Iron to make is works. Well the abacus stays a few years on the wall of this room. I remember a lot of things in this room; this room still exists now. When he was still around, He used to tell particular story about the objects in this room. Including the abacus, he used to tell us (grandchild) how important it is the effect to his business long before digital calculator appeared. With out having abacus back then, it is hard to be precise and people might trick you in money or else without the abacus back then.

In December 1998, our family did not celebrate Christmas and New Year. My grandpa passed away from old age. Since that time, grandma used to stay in the antique room, she probably feels comfortable because that room is full of memories. The abacus remained in that room until December 2006, grandma passed away with aging. After a few weeks she died, dad took a few things from her house, this include the wooden abacus. Now the abacus stays on the wall of our house. It contains a meaningful memory of grandpa, grandma and all the business that dad receives from grandpa. I hope this abacus will stay on the family as a symbol of succession that grandpa achieved for generations to come, be able to tell the history within it.


References:

(1) Wikipedia 2007, Abacus, accessed 6 April 2007, from Wikipedia website : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abacus
(2) Answers 2007, Abacus, accessed 6 April 2007, from Answers website : http://www.answers.com/abacus
(3) Wikipedia 2007, Calculator, accessed 6 April 2007, from Wikipedia website : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculator
(4) Wikipedia 2007, Calculator, accessed 6 April 2007, from Wikipedia website : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculator