Chinese Abacus

The Chinese abacus, also referred to with it's original name Suan Pan, is the Chinese version of the abacus. Each rod of the Suan Pan has five beads on the bottom deck and 2 beads on the top deck. Starting from the right, the beads on the rightmost rod represent units (1,2,3 ... ), next are tens (10,20,30 etc.), then the hundreds, and so on.

How to use the suanpan:

To enter a number in the virtual suanpan you may either type it directly in the field above and hit the "Update" button, or left-click with your mouse on the beads to move them up or down.
To reset the suanpan to 0, press the "Reset" button.

Many pages have been written about the abacus. Search the internet for words such as "Suan Pan" or "Chinese abacus" to find pictures, history, howto's and even abacuses for sale. Abacus, the art of calculating with beads has a lot of information on how to use the Suan Pan for complex calculations.