The Abacus, counting with beads
Before written numbers existed people had to find a way to count things,employing a system of symbols representing the items being counted made sense. Hands and fingers did nicely as long as the items being counted were under 10, (systems of using fingers as a kind of human abacus exist to the day) To make things simple and to expand beyond 10, pebbles twigs and other smaller things stood in for sheep or cattle or whatever needed to be counted.
The problem with using small objects like rice grains was that they were subject to many hazards that got in the way of the counting process. Someone somewhere most likely in Asia came up with the brilliant idea of fixing beads on bars to create a counting system where you would not lose your count or your “pebbles” and they could slide back and forth with little effort counting became a much simpler task. This brought portability to counting, a system that could be carried around with you, a real revolution in mathematics started by humble beads.
Beads are used in other counting systems for example the Catholic rosary is a abacus like system of using beads as a memory aid to remember the number of prayers said. The abacus is not a calculator in the modern sense of the term-it is more of a methodology to make counting systematic. It’s truly amazing to see a merchant at an Asian market using his “bead calculator” at lightening speed, easily out performing the slow prodding of buttons on a modern calculator.