Talk:Suanpan

message: "This Chinese division method [i.e. with division table (归除)] was not used when the Japanese changed their abacus to 1 upper bead and 4 lower beads in about 1920's. So, without a clear knowledge of division table, the trail of history, many have the wrong perception that Chinese abacus was from Roman Grooved Abacus."
This paragraph makes no semantic sense. Could the original author clarify it? I can't correct it myself since I'm not sure I understand what it means to say.
It was because in 1958, two japanese (山崎 and 右衞門) quote some ancient script and, mentioned that Chinese Abacus was evolved from Roman Abacus.  In their passage, they (the two Japanese) deliberately omitted two very important idea, (i) according to the first written discription of "bead arithmatics" in 数书记遗 
珠算，控带四时，经纬三才
甄鸾法：刻板为三分，其上下二分以停游珠，中间一分以定算位，位各五珠，上一珠与下四珠色别，其上别色之珠当五，其下四珠，珠各当一，至下四珠所领，故云控带四时．其珠游于三方之中，故云经纬三才。
No matter how the ancient chinese abacus re-made, NONE was like the Roman Abacus.  
Also from the structure of Roman Grooved Abacus is far different from Chinese abacus:-
The groove marked I indicates units(i.e. 7th from left, or 3rd from the right, the 2nd LONG column from right), X tens, and so on up to millions. The beads in the shorter grooves denote fives—five units, five tens, etc., essentially in a bi-quinary coded decimal system, obviously related to the Roman numerals. 
The eighth column (right 2nd, i.e. the rightmost LONG column) and ninth column (right most) are for 1/12 (one twelveth) and fraction of 1/12.  
On the eighth column (right 2nd ) there are 5 balls (not 4) in lower groove, each represents 1/12 (one twelveth), and one ball in upper groove that represents for 6/12. (6 twelevth, i.e. half).
On the ninth column (right most) there are three grooves, the only ball (one only) in the upper groove represents 1/24 (i.e. half of 1/12), the only ball (one only) in the middle groove represents 1/48 (i.e. one fourth of 1/12).  In the lower groove there are (two balls) each represents 1/72. (2 times one quarter of 1/12). Thus values ranges from 1/144 to 1+1/144.
The number to be denoted are represented by balls that are move upward (as there are 3 grooves on the right column), unlike that of Chinese abacus that move towards the central beam.
(ii) In the document quoted (original written by F cajori and G. Friedlein), they also [deliberately] omitted another important fact..
(translate back from chinese)珠算与实用算数 pp430 - 431  
/O
No matter which method...multiplication and division of comparatively large numbers are beyond the average power of ordinary calculator (the one who calculates), sometimes (the user) have to consult the 'table of sum' and 'table of difference' and 'multiplication table' in order to minimize such difficulties (in order words unlike the chinese abacus which mnemonics are suffice to operate the abacus, even for ordinary people.
The modern Japanse abacus (soroban) do not use division table (归除) and the multiplication (隔位乘) is not that like the Tradition Chinese abacus (留头乘法), and the USA follows that of Japanese, so they draw the wrong/misleading conclusion.Punkymonkeypun 15:31, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing paragraph in Beads section 

message: I think it's not necessary to comment that 0 to 15 is “0hex to Fhex in hexadecimal”, as this article being of general interest, reader may not be computer scientists, using [0-9A-F] notation will just confuse them. In addition, it is also unsightly and lacks context: say we were writing FA10237Chex, it would look like a hexadecimal number, and writing that in decimal would be a lot less convenient. But an “F” on its own without context is just weird and serves to confuse people (even computer scientists). --Kakurady (talk) 17:43, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I absolutely agree, but it does little harm, I think. As far as I recall, someone changed 0-15 into 0-F, and I changed it into the present compromise.--Nø (talk) 08:08, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hexadecimal notation 

message: I have all but removed the references to hexadecimal.  I have searched a lot of the sources and not been able to find a single example.  There was a citation needed marker placed in 2010, and it looks like nothing has been provided.  I have left it mentioned in its own section to let readers know that some people think that and it is possible, without making it sound too sure.  This was added in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Abacus&diff=prev&oldid=5589359 with no sources.  It also said that weights in china "used the hexadecimal system", when really then only had a single base sixteen digit.  The tael were still cut into tenths and hundredths, and the catty were still accumulated in tens and hundreds.  Also the 'abacus' article says that being able to use the extra two beads was incidental, but the deleted paragraph made it sound like that's why they were there.  It's also easy to imagine them not having done this despite their weights system since we are happy with hours, minutes, and seconds, and common desktop calculators that can't add and multiple them.  Does anybody know the source of this story?  Does anybody have an old abacus guide showing how to do this?
comment added by Jackie2541 (talk • contribs) 22 September 2019 (UTC)</small>
Also this old picture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suanpan#/media/File:%E7%9B%98%E7%8F%A0%E7%AE%97%E6%B3%95.jpg with one counter upstairs and five counters downstairs, makes me think that the extra counters were there for another reason, unless that was for some kind of duodecimal system back then.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackie2541 (talk • contribs) 06:34, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Just realised I was wrong – it will accept a hexadecimal number and show it on the suanpan accordingly.  Still, it's a poor reference since there's no mention in the text of the page of it supporting hexadecimal, and furthermore we can't possibly tell from it whether this is the same scheme that was used to work with Chinese weights way back whenever. — Smjg (talk) 18:12, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: After 2 years and no additional supporting information I have taken the liberty to remove this section. DGerman (talk) 23:04, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hexadecimal section 

message: There is a picture called "Modern suanpan 4+1" - but that's a soroban (a japanese abacus).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.122.105.2 (talk) 08:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  soroban picture 

message: At Talk:Chinese Zhusuan#Merge with Suanpan?, it is proposed to merge the to articles Chinese Zhusuan and Suanpan. (It was also proposed to rename Chinese Zhusuan as just Zhusuan.) I suggest discussing the proposal(s) there. My preference would be to merge whatever material from Chinese Zhusuan that is worthy into Suanpan, but the merge might also go the other way. Nø (talk) 12:52, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge proposal