As described in his CV (available on this web site) John Steele worked in Tokyo, Japan, for almost two years from 1988 to 1990. On returning to the UK he became self employed and, as was common at the time, he needed to have his own Limited Company to get contracts with most large companies or with public bodies.
Creating a Limited Company was easy but it required a name. Reflecting on his time sent in Japan he decided to choose a name that reminded him of his time there. The name Soroban Systems Limited was available, seemed to be an ideal choice, and was registered. Soroban Systems Limited was created.
Why was Soroban appropriate? Soroban is the name used by the Japanese for their unique version of the abacus - a counting frame. It was optimised for ease and speed of use and is unique as far as I know. It uses a combination of base 2 and base 5.
In 1990 it was still in common use in Japan, even in the back offices of banks! Japanese children were taught to use it at an early age and even to imagine the beads and do mental arithmetic that would daunt most of the rest of the world. Can you add up columns of 4 digit numbers in your head? That is was Japanese school age children could do very quickly! It is far quicker than entering them into a calculator (at least when you know how to use one)!
There are many links to the Japanese Soroban, and explanations how to use one, on the Internet. An example from Wikipedia is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soroban. There are many websites that teach you to use one. Addition is easy! Multiply and divide have defeated me!
When Internet domain names became affordable in the 1990s John immediately registered the name of Soroban.co.uk and has retained effective ownership of it ever since. It was in practice actively managed by a friend for several years but full control has recently reverted back directly to John.
The domain name Soroban.co.uk is used for both his web site and his email addresses.
Soroban Systems Limited has had several periods of being dormant when John was a full time employee and was even closed for several years before being re-registered again!.
Soroban Systems Limited is once again deregistered as John has now finally retired.