The Abacus: What's New

2007

• Created a PDF document of all the images files from the Lee Abacus manual. I'm not pleased with the quality of the conversion. I think I'm going to have to make higher resolution scans of the pages and retry the conversion. (Thu Nov 01 00:31:51 2007)

2006

• David Bagley emailed me to announce the Java version of the Lee abacus. (Mon Dec 18 16:40:28 2006)
• I received an email from Edward Barnique, announcing his new book “EasyAbacus”, written primarily for students in grades 4-6, but may be used by anyone wishing to learn the basics. (Sun Jun 04 13:05:55 2006)
• Added my Abacus.ldr LDRAW model file of the LEGO abacus. I designed the model using Bricksmith (Mac version). (Sat May 20 21:55:34 2006)

2005

• Put Michael Mode's abaci photos online. (Fri May 13 18:12:50 2005)
• The link to the AMS review of the Universal History of Books was no longer available for free. I have now linked to a HTML copy in Google's Cache. ( Mon Apr 25 19:05:37 2005)
• More links to Wikipedia entries: updated David B. Kelley's analysis with links to Mayan numerals and the Mayan calendar. ( Sun Apr 10 22:17:31 2005)
• Wikipedia article about Roman embassies to China linked in the History page as a possible way that Roman culture was absorbed by China. (Sun Mar 20 12:42:16 2005)
• Byrne's edition of Euclid linked in the "For Teachers" section. (Sat Mar 19 02:34:07 2005)
• Abacus: Mystery of the Bead by Totton Heffelfinger & Gary Flom. (Fri Mar 11 15:09:05 2005)

2004

• Put a “Get Firefox” button in anticipation of the Firefox 1.0 release on Nov. 9th. (Mon Nov 08 08:43:39 2004)
• Changed the "upgrade browser" link on the main page from Mozilla to Firefox. (Sun Sep 19 12:22:27 2004)
• Spanish translation (by Jonathan Abdiel Gonzalez Valdebenito): The addition instructions translated. (Fri Jul 16 23:39:13 2004)
• Spanish translation (by Jonathan Abdiel Gonzalez Valdebenito): The history has been translated. ( Tue Jun 08 22:56:24 2004 )
• Portuguese translation (by Antonio V. Fernandes): The index and the introduction have been translated. (Mon Jan 26 12:48:47 2004)
• Bagley's OCR of Lee's Abacus scans. (Mon Thu Jan 22 19:51:12 2004 )
• Moved the link to Bagley's abacus on the main page up just after the history link. Site was offline for most of last night as the servers had to be shutdown after a water pipe burst due to the extreme cold. The Spanish translation page is getting approximately 10 hits per day from users searching Google in spanish. (Mon Jan 12 00:29:26 2004 )

2003

• Spanish translation (by Jonathan Abdiel Gonzalez Valdebenito): The index and the introduction have been translated. ( Wed Dec 31 18:38:56 2003 )
• Converted Kelley analysis from an image to HTML. ( Wed Dec 31 12:31:51 2003 )
• Added three new photos: 2 photos of the Tomoe soroban and 1 photo of three abaci together. ( Fri Dec 19 20:50:52 2003 )
• Added a link to the Curta calculator. More late-night hacking. ( Fri Dec 19 00:57:16 2003)
• Christmas vacation begins with some abacus photography. The first image (after 4 hours of Photoshop) goes on the title page. Added a better photo of the Lee abacus and a new photo of the Tomoe soroban to the Photo page. For some reason, abaci photograph better standing upright-- a very unnatural position. ( Thu Dec 18 23:09:13 2003)
• The Controversy about da Vinci's Adding Machine. ( Wed Dec 17 01:54:29 2003 )
• During some late-night hacking last night, the addition of some HTML comments caused most of the centre column of the index page to not render. That was rather embarrassing-- no more hacking after midnight. ( Tue Dec 09 23:33:39 2003 )
• Fixed a typo about the 3-column abacus counting up to 199 instead of 999. And a few other typos here and there. ( Tue Dec 09 00:40:42 2003 )
• Added a screenshot to the main page showing how a proper CSS browser should render pages. ( Sun Dec 07 00:32:12 2003 )
• Cut-over to the new CSS pages. ( Mon Dec 01 10:01:24 2003 )
• Added links to cuneiform and ancient Mesopotamia in the Khipu article.
• CSS overhaul is nearly completed. ( Sun Nov 30 14:27:17 2003 )
• Added a link to Roman numerals on the Roman hand-abacus page. ( Thu Nov 27 18:42:09 2003 )
• Added a link to the acrophonic number system (used on the Salamis Tablet). ( Tue Nov 25 14:27:38 2003 )
• Experimenting with converting the entire site to use CSS (cascading style sheets). Note that you will need a modern browser like IE6, Opera or Mozilla to view the pages correctly. Comments are welcome. ( Fri Nov 21 18:08:32 2003 )
• Added a new article from Time, Lost Tribes, Lost Knowledge by Eugene Linden.
  ( Thu Nov 20 18:11:30 2003)
• favicon now displayed for all pages; updated "For Teachers" page with new look (about time!). ( Wed Oct 22 08:01:19 2003 )
• Graphed access statistics. ( Tue Oct 21 00:08:44 2003 )
• New section on site access statistics. ( Sat Oct 18 12:28:08 2003 )
• New banner. ( Sat Oct 18 02:33:05 2003)
• Added a new section with a New York Times article on the Incan khipu and a link to another article, Talking Knots of the Incas; also linked to both in the History page. ( Fri Sep 19 15:14:41 2003)
• Added a link to da Vinci's Calculator. NOTE: Some pages on that site may not appropriate for children, but this page is OK. ( Wed Sep 17 10:23:35 2003.)
• Added a link to abacus entry on The Wikipedia. ( Sun Aug 03 00:58:40 2003)
• Added a new section with high-resolution photos of my abacus collection. ( Wed Jul 30 13:25:46 2003)
• Added a photo of the PalmOS Soroban to Additional Resources and re-arranged some text and images. ( Tue Jul 29 01:22:18 2003)
• Added another photo to Roman hand-abacus page. Updated LEGO abacus page with the new look.
  ( Wed Jun 04 18:29:24 2003)
• Selected by ScientificAmerican.com as a winner of the 2003 Sci/Tech Web Awards. (Tue May 27, 2003)
• Index page has new look. ( Tue Feb 04 16:50:21 2003)
• Link to the Cranmer Abacus available for purchase from the American Printing House. ( Mon Feb 03 20:34:08 2003 )
• "New look" for Introduction, Lee Abacus, Schoty, Contest, Feynman. ( Mon Feb 03 17:26:19 2003 )
• Updated abacus history page with "the new look"; eventually all the pages will sport this look. ( Sun Feb 02 20:39:21 2003 )
• Corrected attribution for photo of Roman hand-abacus. (Updated: Sat Feb 01 06:21:19 2003 )

2002

• New photo and updated information about the Salamis Tablet. (Updated: Tue Dec 31 15:24:23 2002 )
• Sarat Chandran and David A Bagley's Java abacus now supports the schoty (albeit sideways). ( Tue Dec 31 15:20:20 2002 )
• Added The Japanese Abacus Math School to the FAQ. (Updated: Mon Dec 02 22:50:17 2002)
• PalmOS soroban (in Further Resources). ( Mon Dec 02 22:15:32 2002)
• Edward Barnique's Popsicle-stick Abacus (in Further Resources). ( Fri Nov 22 08:49:03 2002)
• Photo of Roman hand-abacus. ( Tue Oct 29 19:46:11 2002)
• Square and cubic roots on the Lee Abacus. ( Tue Oct 22 18:05:27 2002)
• New addition: Feynman vs. the Abacus. ( Sat Oct 05 12:14:51 2002)
• Some minor editing and re-organization of the Introduction and History. ( Sat Oct 05 09:55:44 2002)
• New addition: The Schoty. ( Sat Sep 21 21:48:03 2002)
• New addition: Roman Hand-Abacus. ( Tue Sep 17 10:29:26 2002)
• Abacus watches. ( Mon Sep 02 11:43:13 2002)
• Updated link to the Nepohualtzitzin (an Aztec abacus). ( Tue Aug 20 09:56:39 2002)
• Email correspondence from Maria Jette, the soprano. ( Sat Aug 10 23:44:06 2002)
• Sarat Chandran and David A Bagley have a really wonderful Java abacus that can be switched between Japanese and Chinese version and includes a built-in interactive tutorial that teaches counting. An X11 version (Motif) and a MS Windows version are also available. ( Fri Apr 12 03:30:13 PM 2002)
• After receiving email from Stella Maris Pusino, a journalist of the cultural supplement of The Pais, from Uruguay, telling me that the Babelfish Spanish translation links were broken, I switched over to the Google translation service. ( Friday April 05 10:15:36 AM 2002)

2001

• Added a link to William Kahan's homepage at UC Brekeley with many interesting papers on mathematics. ( Tue Nov 06 18:44:17 2001)
• Link to abacus classroom study-plan: updated. (Updated Wed 24 Oct 2001 20:26:46 EDT)
• Resources For Teachers: collected bits of information from other pages into one place. ( Sun Mar 25 09:56:37 EST 2001)
• FAQ: Added new question, "Who invented the abacus?". I typically receive this question around Spring time. ( Sat Mar 24 08:03:12 EST 2001)
• Source Code: Fixed a typo that prevented nobead.gif from being downloaded and the example applet code from being displayed (thanks Ema!). ( Fri Mar 16 12:21:09 EST 2001)
• Source Code: Instructions for running the applet locally have been improved. Let me know if they're still unclear. ( Mon Jan 1 17:00:50 EST 2001)

2000

• The Lee Kai-chen Abacus: I've finally gotten around to scanning the book from which the addition and subtraction instructions are taken. Chapter 4 and 5 show multiplication and division. ( Tue Nov 21 19:59:54 EST 2000)
• FAQ: Updated the FAQ with 1) a new question about schools teaching the abacus; 2) a new pointer for teachers that has a lesson plan for teaching the abacus and 3) some shops (in Toronto) where abaci may be purchased. ( Tue Nov 14 16:58:39 EST 2000)
• Eric Harshbarger's LEGO abacus: You can also see his other remarkable creations like the LEGO Mona Lisa and a LEGO table. ( Tue Nov 13 20:10:30 EST 2000 )
• Correspondence: Just a small sample of email I have had the pleasure to receive, over the years, about the abacus pages. ( Nov 12 22:35:57 EST 2000)