How to repair my abacus?

[N Cook]

<juuitchan@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9159d95e.0404211601.44f50f31@posting.google.com...

"Nigel Cook" <diverse2@tcp.co.antispam.uk> wrote in message
news:<AYGdnb9C3JqsLerdRVn-vw@tcp.co.uk>...
And a poser for people of a certain age.
What is the significance of the number 0.4971 ?
Should be etched into the memory of anyone of that era.

That's the logarithm of pi to the base 10.

Now... I have a beautiful, working, 23-column Japanese abacus. What do
I do to hold it in place so it doesn't slide around on me when I use
it? I have to have one hand free to keep my place on the page when I
add, don't I?

One gold star.
Doing all that applied maths and physics answers using log tables.
Every answer seemed to require the use of pi so it became memory ingrained
forever.

electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on
http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~diverse