My 3rd Abacus or My 2nd Suanpan: It’s HUGE!

Hello World, Happy New Year 2022, Day 3! 25 days ago, my abacus hobby began with a Cranmer Abacus, a 15-digit (modified) Soroban… Next, I purchased a 7-digit Suanpan, and had it modified. And now, I have my third abacus, a HUGE 7-digit Suanpan! ☺️

Freshly-arrived from Lazada Philippines (eCommerce site), packaging removed by my wife, and quickly tinkered by my arthritis hands, is my first hanging Suanpan. This one feels GREAT on my hands, due to 1in (estimated) diameter “beads”, or UFOs as they feel like to me. My wife told me the colors, causing me to think this product was designed to be seen by persons with eyesight. As a lifelong scientist, this HUGE Suanpan is my latest toy! ☺️

Why get a HUGE abacus? Well, unlike most other BLIND persons, I have arthritis in my hands & callouses on my fingertips (from 10-finger QWERTY touch-typing for almost four decades), so bigger beads feel much better for me. Seven-digits are perfect for me to tinker with when I’m not typing a computer program nor a blog post nor an eMail. For me, working an abacus this size, is purely therapeutic! ☺️

This HUGE abacus costed me 🇵🇭₱963 or 🇺🇸$18.88, imported from mainland China into The Philippines for me to enjoy. I ordered another 7-digit Suanpan, same as my second one, which I will not modify; my fourth abacus should be in my hands within a week.

Thanks for reading my latest blog post about my abacus hobby! Have a Great Day & A Happy New Year 2022!

🇵🇭🇺🇸👨‍🦯🦽 📱⌨️📻🎧 📚🪀🧮

UPDATE (April 22, 2022): The following screen-recording was performed using The vOICe app by SeeingWithSound.

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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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