• The abacus isn’t obsolete three
  days after you buy it.

•  People can’t steal information
  from your hard drive.
• You can’t fritter away your
  afternoon playing solitaire or minesweeper.
• Facebook isn’t so much a hit.
  It’s much safer for your kids to
  play on.
• You can take (in theory) an abacus
  through the metal detector at an airport.*
• People think you’re smart. Any
  idiot can use a computer.
• The abacus floats in a flood.
• If you want to resell it, simply
  move all the beads to the left to zero out your hard drive.
• There are no “abacus viruses”.
• In a pinch you can make your own
  abacus. In less than a decade.
• You will never be subjected to
  “abacus chain mail.”
• The cost of ink cartridges doesn’t
  factor into your buying decisions.
• You can use the abacus in a power
  failure.
• Y2K was a non-issue.

Disadvantages of the Abacus over the Computer

• Internet connections are a lot
  slower.
• You can’t fritter away your
  afternoon playing solitaire or minesweeper.
• Not much memory.
• There’s no abacus help desk.
• No one has figured out how to
  download music yet.
• It’s hard to watch DVDs on your
  abacus.

Things that are just the same

• If you drop it, you probably lost
  all your work.
• There’s still a learning curve.
• Somebody else will always have a
  newer or more impressive one than you have.
• Your kids will still figure it
  out faster.

  (A collaborative effort by Father and Matushka)

  *In ancient times, the beads were not strung on metal wires.