The calculator has had a profound impact on the world, making computations quicker and more exact. In the classroom, calculators have given many students the ability to learn about and put complex formulas and concepts into practice more easily.
Before the invention of the modern calculator, people used some other tools for computation. The abacus, for example, is one ancestor of the calculator. Probably of Babylonian origin, early abaci are believed to have been boards on which the position of counters stood for numerical values. However, the modern abacus -- which some people still use today in China, Japan and the Middle East -- works by moving beads along wires that are strung on a frame.
