While the original 2/5 abacus in Japan was derived from the Chinese abacus, an intriguing possibility is raised that the 1/4 soroban shows a connection to the Roman abacus - due to the similarity the Roman abacus and the Chinese version that was also in use in China. 1930, which became widespread as the Japanese abandoned hexadecimal weight calculation that was still common in China. The 1/4 abacus, which is suited to decimal calculation, appeared ca.drawing of a Roman abacus reveals its usage (see abacus-online-museum) and similarity to the Japanese 1/4 abacus. “Counting tray”), from China around 1600.

The Japanese are believed to have been imported the abacus or soroban (算盤, そろばん, lit.(In Japan, he is worshipped as “the God of Arithmetics,” and August 8 was established as the “abacus festival” in commemoration of him.) This timeframe is strange because the Korean Chinese-derived abacus is said to have arrived a hundred years earlier…suggesting that the abacus predates Cheng Da Wei’s invention. In 1592, Cheng Da Wei published the Suanfa tong zong (General source of computational methods). The Chinese abacus and zhusuan (reckoning by the abacus) are known to have been created by a famous mathematician Cheng Dawei of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), who is known as “the great master of zhusuan”.Koreans call it jupan (주판), supan (수판) or jusan (주산) The Chinese abacus is said have emerged in Korea around 1400 AD.c300 AD The Chinese begin development of the abacus as a mathematical device.c300 BC the Salamis tablet (originally thought to be a gaming board), a marble slab counting board used by the Babylonians circa 300 B.C., discovered in 1846 on the island of Salamis.c500 BC Greeks and Romans are using counting devices based on the same principles as the abacus.c1000 BC Chinese counting boards originated.2700–2300 BC saw the first appearance of the Sumerian abacus, a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal number system.c3000BC An early form of the abacus, built using beads strung on wires is used in China.Early man counted by means of matching one set of objects with another set (stones and sheep).- – Early tables, named abaci, formalized counting and introduced the concept of positional notation.The earliest counting device was the human hand and its fingers.It helps people keep track of numbers as they do the computing. The abacus does not actually do the computing, as today’s calculators do. Known as the Fifth Invention of Ancient China, the abacus can perform addition, subtraction, division and multiplication it can also be used to obtain square roots and cubic roots. The abacus was so successful that its use spread form China to many other countries. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), abaci became popular and spread to East Asian countries. The abacus drawn in the Shuxue Tonggui by Ke Shangqian in the 16th century was the same as current abacus. However, in the sophisticated form that we know today was an innovation during the late Song Dynasty (960-1279) and the early Yuan Dynasty (1280-1368). Lu Ban Mu Jing gave the most detailed description of the making and specifics of the abacus. The Chinese abacus (called suanpan in Chinese) was first described in a 190 CE book of the Eastern Han Dynasty, namely Supplementary Notes on the Art of Figures written by Xu Yue. It could be held and carried around easily. The Chinese abacus was developed about 5000 years ago. However, the earliest abacus was developed in China about 5,000 years ago. Some sources say the abacus was invented in Mesopotamia or Greece about 2,600 years ago and that the Chinese copied it via interactions along the Silk Route. The soroban a calculating device that is derived from the ancient Chinese abacus. Above: The compact Japanese Soroban | Below: the Chinese 2/5 Abacus (2 beads on top section, 5 bead on bottom section) is still widely used in China, while the Japanese continue to use their 1/4 style

Abacus chinese or japanese