Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.63.0509291905260.24406@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: (Computer History) - Thomas Wright's 1861 essay on the medieval
abacus
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 19:05:40 -0400 (EDT)
(Computer History) - Thomas Wright's 1861 essay on the medieval abacus See the images below. The description of an abacus tradition, complete with different names/graphemes for 0-9, is fascinating. The images indicate it may have been something qualitatively different from the abacus as we know it - perhaps to the base 10 itself. This material, I think, should be better known. The book is: Essays on Archaeological Subjects, And on Various Questions Connected with the History of Art, Science, and Literature in the Middle Ages., by Thomas Wright, John Russell Smith, 1861. The essay: On the Abacus or Mediaeval System of Arithmetic. Please note the images might not be up longer than a week or so; space is limited. http://www.asondheim.org/abac1.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/abac2.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/abac3.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/abac4.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/abac5.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/abac6.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/abac7.jpg http://www.asondheim.org/abac8.jp