Analyze: Technological Breakthrough
A piece of technology that is ubiquitous, which I assume refers to something is so common in the modern era that it can literally be found anywhere, I supposed war innovations are out of the question. The piece of technology must also be developed before my birth date, which is around the mid-90s. Alright, the piece of technology I’m going to be covering today, is the prehistoric calculator, abacus.
So, what is an abacus? Abacus is the first known calculating device used for arithmetic counting that is dated back to at least approximately 2500 BC, where the first recorded use of it was all the way back in the time of ancient Sumerians. The exact origin is quite a mystery and is still debated among historians to this very day.
As you can see in the picture, an abacus is typically made of wooden beads, rods, and a frame to hold them all together. The modern version of abaci is derived from the ancient Chinese’s abacus model. It is typically divided into 2 sections: upper deck, and lower deck. It usually contains about 10 rods and 7 beads on each rod, which makes a total of 70 beads. There are several varieties of abaci with a different number of beads on each rod, a different number of rods, or even different counting system. It has simply been existed for a really long time, definitely older than my unspecified birthday, which is why it has so many different iterations with lots of varieties throughout the globe. Even without a keen observation, most children can tell you that abacus is clearly being replaced with the inventions of far superior computational power such that of electronic calculators, computers, smartphones, and probably some technologically advanced toasters. Not to mention that most of the abaci are only limited to 2 digits. Even modern skeuomorphism doesn’t even use an abacus as a signifier for a calculator on most applications. However, it is not completely forgotten, many places around the world still use abaci even today. Although it is mostly used for educational purposes.











