My father had a soroban that he had bought in Japan just after World War II, when he was in the U.S. Navy, and when I was around ten years old I got an instruction book and learned the basics. I never got very fast, but some Japanese-American friends had learned soroban and were pretty good. This was in Southern California in the 1960s.

I moved to Japan in 1983. For the next decade or so, I often saw clerks using soroban in offices, shops, department stores, and even banks. It’s been a long time, though, since I last saw one in action. But soroban basics are still part of the elementary-school curriculum, and there’s a private school that teaches soroban a few blocks from where I live in Yokohama.

Some sorobanists (?) are able to do rapid mental arithmetic with large numbers by visualizing the beads in their mind.