In Tokyo in 1964 I bought a Soroban with Kojima's book "The Japanese Abacus: Its Use and Theory", an event that sparked my interest in abaci ... and in computers. After getting my M. Eng. (Elect.) degree at Cornell University, my 30 year career included working on the design and construction of nuclear power plants, missile systems software engineering, and industrial and engineering computer systems sales and systems engineering. Deciding to become a high school math teacher at the end of 2000, I took a History of Math course as part of my M.Ed. degree program at UMassLowell. I was struck by how easy it would be to use ancient Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and Babylonian numerals to record abaci calculation results. Prof. Gonzalez asked, "Yes, but how would you do multiplication and division?" So as a hobby, I've worked the last 10 years to (re-) discover the schematics and programming rules of the computers the Ancients used to do their accounting and engineering to support and empower the greatest empires in human history. I hope you find Ancient Computers interesting and useful, -Steve Stephenson, M. Eng. (Elect.), M. Ed., http: //sks23cu.net/MT/, July 15, 2010. Edition 2 changes some formatting and adds two appendices: N: Nonary Base (candidate for electronic implementations); and V: Visualizing Abacus Arithmetic. Edition 2 is now available as a printed book in addition to the Kindle eBook. Two DVDs containing the Stephenson Videos are also available on Amazon.com as Ancient Computers: Part II - Video Users Manual, How to Use a Counting Board Abacus (1 of 2) and Ancient Computers: Part II - Video Users Manual, How the Romans Used a Counting Board Abacus (2 of 2). -Steve Stephenson, July 2013, Math Teacher (precalc and calc), retired 6/30/2013.
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