Preamble
序文
William S-Y.Wang 王士元

Abstract 摘要
By way of preamble to this timely book, it is an honor for me to offer some personal reflections on computers and Chinese linguistics. To the historically-minded, the word "computer' easily calls to mind that prototype developed in ancient China, the "suanpan" (literally, compute-board), known in the West as the abacus. The Japanese word "soroban" derives from the Chinse original, replacing the Chinese n by r. According to Needham (1959:76), the suanpan may have been in use in China as early as 200AD! Certainly by 570 AD, an extant commentary gives a clear and exact description of the instrument...