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Long before people marveled over solar powered, credit card-sized calculators, there existed the world’s first portable, human-powered calculator. Presenting the abacus, the device used for centuries by merchants and goat herders to rapidly perform calculations that would break human fingers.
Abacus comes from the Greek word meaning “to swindle you faster.” Seriously, the abacus or counting board is simple to master, and in the deft hands of an expert, it can even out perform all operations on a calculator — including the square and cubic roots. In his short story “Into the Comet,” science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke wrote of stranded astronauts using many abacuses to plot their voyage home when the spaceship’s computer broke down.