My Newest Scientific HOBBY: The Cranmer Abacus

My NEW Cranmer Abacus hobby consists of a 16 day old 15-digit unit and a 6 day old 7-digit unit.

Hello World! Archeology, one of many scientific interests I often research, and the fact that I am BLIND, is what interested me in self-learning the Cranmer Abacus. Now, I’ve formulated my abacus interest into a BLIND Hobby for me, facilitating my skill of mental mathematics. ☺️

Despite my vision impairment, I still perform “mental math”, or mathematics in my head. Daily, several times an hour, when I wake up, I’m always calculating something, often as soon as I wake up from a nap or (deep) sleep. And yes, I often have headaches from performing too much mental math! When I heard another blind person in Clubhouse spoke of using an abacus, my interest into the abacus began. ☺️

Today, my brother-in-law, with the assistance of his 16 year-old daughter, modified my 7-digit Suanpan into something I can benefit from, a secondary Cranmer Abacus! My 7-digit unit is easier for me to use, as my fingertips have callouses from 10-finger QWERTY touch-typing for 40+ years.The necessary modifications utilized a cloth towel, styrofoam, a little glue & some tape, preventing the large beads from freely sliding. My brother-in-law will soon return to add stronger glue. This was their first time in modifying a Suanpan into a Cranmer Abacus! I was only guessing the 16 year-old daughter, whom is a Filipina, would have some useful crafting skills, and I was correct! ☺️

As a veteran computer scientist & a veteran computer programmer, whom is now over 50 years old, one would wonder why I would want an abacus, when I could simply write a computer program! Well, I’m totally BLIND and I wish to have technology that does not require electrical power nor a computing chip, like those found in electronic calculators or today’s computing devices, such as smartphones. Since the slide rule is no longer an option (due to my vision impairment), the Cranmer Abacus became the solution! ☺️

Interestingly, unlike sighted persons & some BLIND ones, I really dislike using a touchscreen-based calculator. I’m either using a voice assistant (making myself lazy), or writing a computer program to solve a mathematics problem. When I had eyesight, a mechanical pencil & a pad of paper were essential to me; the abacus is the equivalent to performing arithmetic using paper & a writing instrument, such as a pencil or pen.

Though now I have two Cranmer Abaci, I’m still thinking of purchasing another abacus, but a non-slip one with a “reset button”. But, as of this writing, no order has been placed, yet.

Thanks for reading my latest blog post about my new Cranmer Abacus hobby! Have a Great Day!

🇵🇭🇺🇸👨‍🦯🦽 📱⌨️📻🎧 📚🪀🧮

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Published by Marcos 🇵🇭🇺🇸

Happily-Married, comfortably poor, permanently disabled and totally BLIND. A Terrorism SURVIVOR that's still SURVIVING Terrorism + post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Scientist since 1977, Acoustician since 1979, Computer Scientist/Programmer since 1982, Seismologist since 1988, Criminologist (Behavioral Scientist) since 1992, and many more! Also, had worked in two civilian and one military virology labs in the USA between 1993 and 2003. A Generation X, Filipino-American US expat, living in The Philippines, whom was naturally-born in Boston, grew up mostly in Seattle, some in Chicago, and have lived in Anchorage & San Francisco. Became permanently-disabled in 2003 due to health-related illness, ending my moonlighting career as an independent private investigator in the USA. RETIRED independent developer of computing & electronics technologies after 35 wonderful years, including 20 wonderful years in GNU/Linux development & 8 wonderful years as an independent embedded systems developer of digital electronics. Former speech synthesis systems developer of 30 wonderful years, specializing in foreign language phoneme-to-speech synthesis. Also was a beta tester of third-party software-based speech synthesizers. Former FCC-licensed amateur radio operator of 20 wonderful years, beginning with 2m packet-radio & AmSat communications between Anchorage & Manila. Former member of Anchorage Amateur Radio Club and Mike & Key ARC in Seattle. Learned 10-finger QWERTY touch-typing on a manual typewriter in 1980 at a US-based elementary school. Mastered 10-finger QWERTY touch-typing without looking at the keyboard in 1986. Now have osteoarthritis in both of my hands from all that touch-typing! My primary computer programming language is C, which I learned in 1990. My secondary programming language is B.A.S.I.C., which I self-learned in 1982. Prior to my sight-loss, I used to program in LISP/CLISP and Prolog for my early development of artificial intelligence & machine learning programs. Daily, to compensate/facilitate my sight-loss, I am actively using Apple iOS VoiceOver, Google Android TalkBack and Amazon Fire OS VoiceView screen-readers, in addition to my external Bluetooth QWERTY keyboard and sometimes, my Orbit Writer Braille keyboard, as HOBBIES.

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