The phrase "calculating on an abacus" appeared about 1000 years ago in Hsu Yue's work, Notes on Mathematics, in the Han dynasty, which tells us that an instrument for mathematical calculation similar to the abacus existed at that time.
珠算一詞，在一千年前後漢徐岳的「數術記遺」中已可見，或許當時已有類似算盤的計算器存在。