Question for Computer Gurus

[HummerNewbie]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by h2co-pilot:
It's an Abacus , if it were several it would be abaci.

An abacus is a calculation tool, often constructed as a wooden frame with beads sliding on wires. It was in use centuries before the adoption of the written Hindu-Arabic numeral system and is still widely used by merchants and clerks in China and elsewhere.

The origins of the abacus are disputed, suggestions including invention in Babylonia and in China, to have taken place between 2400 BC and 300 BC. The first abacus was almost certainly based on a flat stone covered with sand or dust. Lines were drawn in the sand and pebbles used to aid calculations. From this, a variety of abaci were developed; the most popular were based on the bi-quinary system, using a combination of two bases (base-2 and base-5) to represent decimal numbers

The use of the word abacus dates back to before 1387 when a Middle English work borrowed the word from Latin to describe a sandboard abacus. The Latin word came from abakos, the Greek genitive form of abax ("calculating-table"). Because abax also had the sense of "table sprinkled with sand or dust, used for drawing geometric figures," it is speculated by some linguists that the Greek word may be derived from a Semitic root, ?b?q, the Hebrew word for "dust." Though details of the transmission are obscure, it may also be derived from the Phoenician word abak, meaning "sand".


Did that give you a Chubby? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ken, did you leave the encyclopedia out again?