How to play abacus half a catty:

First, put down all the beads on the abacus, indicating an initial value of zero. Then move the beads on the tens place up four units to indicate half a catty, or 0.5 pounds. Then move the beads in the single digit up eight units to indicate eight taels.

Introduction to the abacus:

The abacus is a form of manually operated calculation aid. It originated in China and was an important invention of ancient China. Before the advent of Arabic numerals, the abacus was a widely used computational tool in the world. Today, the abacus continues to be used in parts of Asia and the Middle East, especially in stores, where it can be purchased from stores supplying Chinese and Japanese goods.

The abacus was invented by the Chinese after a long history of using counting chips. In ancient times, people used small wooden sticks to make calculations, which were called "abacus", and the calculations made with the abacus as a tool were called "chi chi". Later, with the development of production, the use of small wooden sticks for calculation is limited, so people invented a more advanced calculator - abacus.

The abacus is rectangular, surrounded by a wooden frame, which is fixed with a small wooden stick, small wooden stick wearing wooden beads, the center of a beam and the abacus is divided into two parts, the upper part of each stick has two beads, each bead when the five, the lower part has five beads, each bead on behalf of the one. Despite the fact that we have entered the age of electronic computers, we cannot look at the old Chinese abacus without admiring the great wisdom of our ancestors.

The general abacus is mostly wooden (or plastic), rectangular wooden frame arranged in a string of equal number of beads known as the file, there is a beam to the beads separated into the upper and lower parts, the upper part of each bead on behalf of the 5, the lower part of each bead on behalf of the 1. Each string of beads from right to left on behalf of the decimal digits of the number of individuals, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand digits. Together with the software a set of finger dialing beads rules of arithmetic mnemonics, you can solve a variety of complex operations, and can even open the square many times.

The abacus is the predecessor of the modern computer, is the symbol of ancient Chinese computing technology. The new shape of the abacus is a rectangle, around the wooden frame, inside the straight column, commonly known as "file". Generally from nine to fifteen stalls, stalls across the beam, two beads on the beam, each bead for the number of five, five beads under the beam, each bead for the number of one, the operation of the positioning of the beads after dialing the calculation can be done to add, subtract, multiply, divide and so on algorithms.