New toy: Abacus -need to learn from scratch!

[poodlesrule]

Well, I found a cheap abacus at a yard sale today.

A I am new to the thing, I have some learning to do..
As I may lose power on account of Irene, over the week-end (yay, no vacuuming!), that would be just the thing.

Any abacus-savvy fretters?

I just found some instructions on the web, one pointing out that the upper beads represent "Beyond" and the lower ones "Earth"...

[Tig]

We learned the abacus back in 2nd or 3rd grade, but they were made of stone in them days.
Sorry, I don't remember a thing.

http://grumpy-people.com/gallery/Grandpa-Abe-Simpson.jpeg

[Eric]

Cool. I think that would be kind of fun, but perhaps a lot like doing math in your head. I'm interested in any insights you get from using it. The closest I came to an abacus was a teacher who once said she made her daughter use a slide rule for doing calculations. I thought that was bad, considering we all used Excel and graphing calculators. An abacus is just the next step down that path, I suppose.

[piebaldpython]

Well, I found a cheap abacus at a yard sale today.

A I am new to the thing, I have some learning to do..
As I may lose power on account of Irene, over the week-end (yay, no vacuuming!), that would be just the thing.

Any abacus-savvy fretters?

I just found some instructions on the web, one pointing out that the upper beads represent "Beyond" and the lower ones "Earth"...

Damn, talk about OLD SKEWL!! Like Tig, I remember messing around with one in elementary school. The big thing back in those day in junior high school was the slide rule. lol My Dad used one at his job.......this is pre-calculators mind you.

In 5th grade (I'm 54), we learned the new fangled version of the NEW LONG DIVISION. Good Lord Almighty, was that a mess. If you already were good at long division, the NEW way made it LONGER and more difficult. If you couldn't divide the OLD way, few figured out the new way. In fact, they even had classes at school at night for the parents, so they could learn......and then help us. My father, a brilliant man, just laughed and shook his head after going to class.

If we lose power, I have a reso that's dying to be played in Open G......for some Stones and some slidin'.

[poodlesrule]

My abacus, after some googling is a Soroban type, as used in Japan (and maybe India), a derivative of the Chinese. it is "one-up, four-down". Fairly well made, not toy.

Ah, the slide rule! I still have my OWN, a fancy one for engineering schooling, but only a vague recollection on how to use it.
I will get back to it after i master guitar-playing....muahahahah!