Will the Abacus Survive Again?

ONCE again, survival of the abacus is endangered​—or so it seems. This time, it is threatened by the proliferation of the inexpensive pocket electronic calculator. In Japan the sale of calculators soared from 1.4 million in 1970 to over 68 million in 1983. In 1983 abacus sales were only two million.

Before you write off this simple calculating tool that once enjoyed wide usage, however, do you know that this is not the first time it has had to struggle for survival against new inventions?

From Abakion to Soroban

The abacus was not an exclusively Oriental invention. The Greeks had their abakion and the Romans their abacus, slabs of wood or marble marked with parallel lines or grooves. Counting was done by moving pebbles up and down these lines. Just try to picture the difficulty in calculating with Roman numerals, and you can see the need for such a tool. Thus, counting-boards became widely used in Europe until the introduction of Hindu-Arabic numbers in the late Middle Ages.

Then came the “algorists,” who promoted writing out the calculations with Arabic numbers on paper. The “abacists,” on the other hand, stuck to the counting board and Roman numerals. The controversy raged until the 16th century, when paper became more abundant. Finally, the algorists gained the upper hand, and the counting board became an endangered species.

While the battle was on in Europe, the counting board found a new lease on life in the East. By the 15th century, the Chinese were using a modified form of it, with beads sliding on rods, that they called suan pan, or computing tray. From there it found its way across the Yellow Sea to Japan, where it changed into a simpler form​—the soroban.

Challenge in the Electronic Age

After surviving another 500 years, the abacus faces a new challenge​—the electronic calculator. Back when electronic calculators were so expensive that few people could afford them, the abacus enjoyed a secure place in small shops and offices. But as the price of calculators dropped and sales boomed, the soroban appeared to be doomed once again. Or was it?

Well, can you add 15 numbers of 12 digits in 20 seconds? Or how about doing 30 multiplications of 12-digit numbers by 6-digit numbers in four minutes? Masters of the abacus can. But most calculators cannot even handle that many digits, and it often takes longer just to enter the digits, let alone perform the calculations. As for ordinary calculations, many Japanese still feel they can do better with their soroban than with the calculator.

This has prompted one manufacturer to put out a machine with a calculator on one side and an abacus on the other, thus having the best of both worlds. It is reported that 1.5 million of these were sold in ten years. So, are we seeing a rallying of the abacus? Perhaps. In any case, the abacus will always have one advantage over the calculator: There is no need to worry about power failure.