Apple’s abacus emoji is wrong

Apple’s abacus emoji is wrong. Or, technically not “wrong” per se, in that you can probably still use it do math if you actually know how to use an abacus (I do not). But still, that ever useful emoji — added in the Unicode 11.0 update to the emoji standards as part of iOS 12 — is apparently incorrect on Apple devices when compared to nearly any abacus used across the whole of human civilization. The error was first spotted by Twitter user @sophophobic, who noticed that Apple’s abacus configuration appeared to be one that was never used at any point in history. When in history was a 2:4 abacus ever used? Greeks/Romans used 1:4 counting stones. Chinese used 2:5 (for decimal or hex). Japan adopted China's 2:5 via Korea, then 1:5, then... Continue reading…