There are many civilizations that use the Abacus. The first record of an abacus was a sketch from a book in the Yuan Dynasty (fourteenth century.) Its mandarin name is Suan Pan. The first civilization to use the Abacus was the Chinese. They used it for their mathematics such as addition, subtraction, and multiplication.
The Dust Abacus was thought to be the first Abacus ever made, but this one Abacus has evolved into many other Abacuses. In France they use the Michael Rous' Abacus, it was invented in 1969. Leonardo's design was first made in Circa 1500. Rome also has an Abacus from Circa 200. Archeological excavations have found an Aztec Abacus which has corn kernels for the counters,then they were strung on string then finally they attached them to a wooden frame. The Japanese also have an Abacus which was invented in 1600 A.D.
Nobody knows who was the inventor of this great invention that is being used world wide as a counting device. Many archeologists believe it to be first made by someone in China or Egypt, but nobody knows for sure.
Sources
http://www.ironhorse.com/~nagual/abacus
http://www.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/abacus/
http://www.qi-journal.com/abacus.html
http://socoa.inrra.fr/amisa/objetsEng.html
