Calculator
How Calculators Work There might have been a time when the most complex calculations people needed to conduct could have been performed on their fingers and toes. However, nowadays, it's all but impossible for a lot of people to imagine doing anything that requires numbers- from math homework to tax returns to tipping servers at restaurants without the assistance of at least a basic pocket calculator. In fact, electronic calculators are so ubiquitous that it's difficult to believe that they weren't widespread until the latter half of the 20 th century. Before the advent of the current calculator prior to the invention of the modern calculator, there were other instruments for computation. The abacus is an example. It is an ancestor of today's calculator. Perhaps it is of Babylonian origin early abaci can be believed to have been boards, where the positions of counters represented numbers. However, the modern abacus -- that many people still use throughout Chin...