
64 ◾ Computing
8.3 THE CHINESE ABACUS
While it is clear that the Sumerian abacus underwent many adaptations and
had spread throughout the lands of the Middle East and Mediterranean,
there is also evidence of the use of abaci from ancient times in Asian
civilizations. In the second century BC, the Chinese calculated with small
bamboo sticks or rods on a board. ey used a positional decimal system,
and like the early Sumerians, while they had written numbers, they did
not calculate with them directly [2]. e earliest known written docu-
mentation about the Chinese abacus is probably in a book (c. 190 AD) on
the Eastern Han dynasty (25–225 ...