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Rating: 
Summary: Delightful--entertaining and informative
Review: I spent years mildly curious about the abacus--particularly, any time I saw film of schoolkids or shopkeepers in Asia producing inerrant sums and differences with their fingers all a blur. Then, I saw this book, bundled with a little wooden abacus, and decided I'd give this ancient calculator a try. I found the book an delight, with its friendly discussions of the history of the abacus, its variant forms from land to land (Chinese vs. Japanese, etc.), and, even its jolly little excursion into binary arithmetic on the abacus. Yes, I suppose it is a short book, and it doesn't spend a lot of pages on mathematical drill, but how many pages do you need? It's not like there's a complicated operating system or scripting language for this venerable tool...just the curious yet undeniable pleasure of sliding beads along sticks, just as people have been doing for centuries... I should also mention that the abacus makes a great conversation piece, sitting out on the top of your Pentium tower at work. "My new palmtop," I tell everyone who asks.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful--entertaining and informative
Review: I spent years mildly curious about the abacus--particularly, any time I saw film of schoolkids or shopkeepers in Asia producing inerrant sums and differences with their fingers all a blur. Then, I saw this book, bundled with a little wooden abacus, and decided I'd give this ancient calculator a try. I found the book an delight, with its friendly discussions of the history of the abacus, its variant forms from land to land (Chinese vs. Japanese, etc.), and, even its jolly little excursion into binary arithmetic on the abacus. Yes, I suppose it is a short book, and it doesn't spend a lot of pages on mathematical drill, but how many pages do you need? It's not like there's a complicated operating system or scripting language for this venerable tool...just the curious yet undeniable pleasure of sliding beads along sticks, just as people have been doing for centuries... I should also mention that the abacus makes a great conversation piece, sitting out on the top of your Pentium tower at work. "My new palmtop," I tell everyone who asks.
Rating: 
Summary: Way too simple and short
Review: If you thought you can buy this book and do arithmetic on the abacus, I'm sorry, but you're wrong. First, this book is WAY TOO SHORT to describe much. It's less than 1/2 inch thick and the size of each page is slightly bigger than that of a regular dictionary. Second, much of the sections don't relate to the abacus at all! There's one long chapte that talks about the binary system in computers and how you can use the abacus' top part to do binary arithmetic, which is basically pointless. Another chapter is a story about how a westerner gets amaze by the abacus, which is also useless. Out of the 140 pages, only about 70 pages teaches you how to use the abacus. Also, although I haven't confirmed it yet, I am not sure if the way the author describes to do multiplication and division is the correct way to use it. I'll have to check. His way makes it the same as doing everything out on paper. But still, look at what he teaches you: adding subtraction in detail, and some multiplication and division with doubted validity. He also takes like a bunch of pages describing adding and subtracting decimals. But that's unnecessary because it's the exact same thing with minor differences that he could have stated in a page and replaced with more information, like exponentiation. The included abacus has height about that of 1 floppy disk and width of that of 1 and 1/4 floppies. It might even be smaller. Plus, it's hard to move and isn't colored (just wood and plastic). In sum, this book is a total ripoff if you had wanted to do some cool stuff on the abacus. On the other hand, if you just wanted the book for casual purposes, maybe it's worth it. But the author's tone treats you like a moron that can't do arithmetic (he explains things like carrying and borrowing like you're in kindergarten and treats his multiplication and division methods, which are exact replicas from our normal paper ways, like the hardest things in the world)
Rating: 
Summary: poor and dated
Review: This book has some nice anecdotal information on the abacus. The one that comes with it is actually fairly nice. It is a Chinese 2/5 with 9 columns. This is not really enough for multiplication and division problems. Still it isn't a bad one. The algorithms for using it in the book are wrong. For instance you properly add and subtract going from left to right. You should actually do it this way on paper. Try it, it's easier than right to left. Yes they work but are not how to use it properly. If you want to really learn how to us it get Takashi Kojima's book, "Japanese Abacus: Its Use and Theory". This book will really teach you how and includes the standard tests for third and first degree certification. Understand that most modern use of the abacus is based on the 1/4 Japanese Soroban. You will never use both 5 count beads on the top, just one. And on the bottom you will use 4 of the 5 beads. You might get confused learning proper use with a Chinese Suan Pan(abacus). Still they are nice and some have larger beads easier to work than those on a Japanese Soroban. I use an abacus for teaching my first grade twins math. They are great for kids learning how to carry etc. When I was in highschool calculators were new and expensive. I used a Soroban with my slide rule. with some practice you can actually do some remarkable things with one even in the day of cheap calculators. For an alternative place for getting an abacus check out Tomoe Soroban on the internet.
Rating:
Summary: poor and dated
Review: This book has some nice anecdotal information on the abacus. The one that comes with it is actually fairly nice. It is a Chinese 2/5 with 9 columns. This is not really enough for multiplication and division problems. Still it isn't a bad one. The algorithms for using it in the book are wrong. For instance you properly add and subtract going from left to right. You should actually do it this way on paper. Try it, it's easier than right to left. Yes they work but are not how to use it properly. If you want to really learn how to us it get Takashi Kojima's book, "Japanese Abacus: Its Use and Theory". This book will really teach you how and includes the standard tests for third and first degree certification. Understand that most modern use of the abacus is based on the 1/4 Japanese Soroban. You will never use both 5 count beads on the top, just one. And on the bottom you will use 4 of the 5 beads. You might get confused learning proper use with a Chinese Suan Pan(abacus). Still they are nice and some have larger beads easier to work than those on a Japanese Soroban. I use an abacus for teaching my first grade twins math. They are great for kids learning how to carry etc. When I was in highschool calculators were new and expensive. I used a Soroban with my slide rule. with some practice you can actually do some remarkable things with one even in the day of cheap calculators. For an alternative place for getting an abacus check out Tomoe Soroban on the internet.
Rating:
Summary: A good introduction to this magical "machine"
Review: This book is an excellent introduction into how to use the abacus. I think some of other reviewers here missed the point of this particular text -- it wasn't meant to be the end-all official reference of how to use an abacus. It serves it's purpose well: If you've always been curious about the little device that can be as fast as a calculator (in some people's hands), this is a good, short, book to give you an overview of the basic usage of it. If you want to become an abacus expert, I'm sure you could find thicker more expensive books that would suit you better.
In addition to lessons on how to do basic math, the monotony of the exercise chapters are broken up by a sprinkling of history, story, and lore behind the development and use of the abacus.
Overall, this is a good, brief, book which can answer the question, "How does that thing work?" Best of all, it's short enough that you could read it in an hour or two. As a side note, the abacus it comes bundled with is also good for this introductory purpose. It's small, and unless you have tiny fingers, you'll probably bump beads unintenionally -- but for the price, it's good enough to satisfy your curiosity.
Rating:
Summary: A good introduction to this magical "machine"
Review: This book is an excellent introduction into how to use the abacus. I think some of other reviewers here missed the point of this particular text -- it wasn't meant to be the end-all official reference of how to use an abacus. It serves it's purpose well: If you've always been curious about the little device that can be as fast as a calculator (in some people's hands), this is a good, short, book to give you an overview of the basic usage of it. If you want to become an abacus expert, I'm sure you could find thicker more expensive books that would suit you better.
In addition to lessons on how to do basic math, the monotony of the exercise chapters are broken up by a sprinkling of history, story, and lore behind the development and use of the abacus.
Overall, this is a good, brief, book which can answer the question, "How does that thing work?" Best of all, it's short enough that you could read it in an hour or two. As a side note, the abacus it comes bundled with is also good for this introductory purpose. It's small, and unless you have tiny fingers, you'll probably bump beads unintenionally -- but for the price, it's good enough to satisfy your curiosity.
Rating:
Summary: Fun for all ages!
Review: This book is excellent for learning basic information about the abacus. This book demonstrates at a late elementary school level. For those with prior experience and or knowledge related to the abacus, the best part is that an abacus is included! This book is very informational and useful. The abacus (Chinese version or 2/5 style) can be used for experimentation and demonstration- I used it on an overhead for a presentation to a large audience!
Rating:
Summary: Good basic abacus book and good beginner's abacus
Review: This is a good beginners introduction to the abacus. It is too wordy for young children and will require an adult to explain. It gave me enough detail to understand the basics and start using the abacus after about 15 minutes.
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