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Uppercase Latin is the suanpan, the Chinese abacus. The extra beads give it some more computational power, especially in multiplication and division. Letters STUVWX show the suspended bead technique, which extends the suanpan even further.
Lowercase Latin a-l show the older Japanese model with five lower beads, a transition between the suanpan the the soroban used today. If you imagine its heaven bead as having a value of six instead of five, it also works as a duodecimal abacus.
Latin lowercase q-z shows the chortkeh, the Persian abacus, containing nine beads per rod, each bead with a value of one. It is the most straightforward abacus for the decimal number system, good for those who are confused by earth and heaven beads of East Asian models. Since its reckoning bar is on the bottom of the frame, the unit rod marker dot is the ! character.
Numbers 0-9 will produce the Japanese soroban, the most common abacus today. The vertical bar | is used to draw the edges, while # will mark the previous rod with a dot on the reckoning bar, marking the unit rod.
Cyrillic uppercase results in the schoty, the Russian abacus. With ten beads per wire, it was widely used in Soviet Union shops until the 1970's. Letters ЛМНОП show the quarter ruble rod with only four beads.
Uppercase Greek shows the nepohualtzintzin, the Mesoamerican abacus. Made of maize seeds on horizontal wires, the seeds tumble back and forth toward the reckoning bar. It uses a vigesimal number system. The unit place marker is @.
Lowercase Greek has a number of small number base abaci. Alpha to theta is an octal abacus with a middle reckoning bar: the heaven bead has a value of four.
Lambda to pi is a senary abacus. In senary numbers all prime numbers bigger than 3 end in 1 or 5.
Final sigma to upsilon is a quaternary abacus. The DNA in the cells of living beings is essencially a quaternary system of information.
Chi and psi make a binary abacus. The binary number system is the basis of electronic computers everywhere.
Armenian uppercase from ayb to men is a vigesimal abacus in a more familian configuration of beads sliding in vertical rods. Like the nepohualtzintzin, its unit rod marker is @.
Armenian uppercase ra to oh shows the typical Japanese soroban, but active beads are black while inactive beads are white.
Some websites to check if you want to know more about abaci:
http://totton.idirect.com/
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Using_an_Abacus
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Traditional_Abacus_and_Bead_Arithmetic
DX
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