The Abacus Feeder Rest & Fish Counter

Banks calculating interest, kids dividing up cookies, engineers designing bridges, we make calculations every day, and for as long as we’ve juggled numbers greater than our fingers and toes, we’ve sought aids to make computations easy and accurate.

For those F1 ten a penny fish counters and device clickers fishing a feeder match at the Engine pool at Earlswood Lakes can quickly get in to trouble using what is currently on the market today. 

A tally totalling tool is great for keeping track of your weight when net limits apply and could well avoid any possible disqualification issues. Now not long ago an angler banked a staggering 881lb 5oz of fish in five hours to smash the match on Bowes Lake at County Durham’s Angel of the North Fishing Lakes. 

He landed a never-ending stream of carp averaging 10lb to fill 20 keepnets come the final whistle, comfortably clear of the second placer angler, who landed an almighty 606lb of fish himself.

 

10 keepnets, yeap, a common occurrence !!!! > 2000 bleak in a match, yeap that happens too....

But wait no further there is a now a new option on the market from Piscatorial Quagswagging that stands out from the humdrum, so lets get back to basics for some answers. 

For centuries, calculators were the only machines to help us compute. A long lineage of devices stretching from the ancient abacus to today’s digital computer. 

Throughout the history of calculating we’ve devised ways to add speed and accuracy while subtracting the drudgery. Many solutions used body parts, notably fingers. A 19th century Chinese technique can count to 10 billion using just two hands! 

Matrix Fish Clicker

Other solutions were mechanical both general-purpose tools for everyday calculations and specialized instruments for engineering, navigational, or other scientific and technical problems.

Perhaps the oldest continuously used calculating tool aside from fingers, the abacus is a masterpiece of power and simplicity. 

Abacuses were widely used in Asia and Europe for centuries, and remain common today. In an era before pencils and ballpoint pens, portability was a key advantage of the abacus. It enabled vendors or tax collectors, for instance, to make calculations anywhere, even standing in a marketplace where jotting down figures was impractical.

Initial Concept Packaging Study - DW Special One

Abacuses evolved in various forms at different times and places. But all share certain basic characteristics: movable markers arranged in vertical or horizontal columns, with different rows representing different values (ones, fives, tens, etc.).

Moving the markers “activates” them, creating different combination's of values.

The Electronic Age elbowed out the Mechanical Age in the 1960s. Calculator manufacturers had to adapt or perish. Electronics firms not previously in the calculator business saw this transition as a chance to compete on a newly level field. 

 

Competition fuelled innovation. By the late 1960s, desktop electronic calculators were lighter and quieter than their mechanical ancestors. 

Not necessarily better for every job…but bursting with potential....

Mechanical is where it's at you see, but the current offerings on the market fall flat with the fish numbers caught these days. So Mavers sliding armrest gave me inspiration when devising the abacus armrest where it means there are no issues running out of digits as it will never be encountered.

After the initial concept was created the DW Special Two, the working prototype was designed, made, tested and developed. The outcome well.... 

....soon to be in the pound shop near you, fill your boots !!!!