[jaclaz]

>For example can you think of the rules to multiply XVIV with XXV or can you quickly calculate what the result of that will be without translating to a decimal number system ? Exactly!

Well, very likely the Romans had some tricks to do that (and besides very likely they did use an abacus), the fact that it appears difficult to us (having been immersed in positional notation) does not mean much.

This algorithm (making use of halving and doubling) doesn't look so bad:

http://rbutterworth.nfshost.com/Tables/romanmult

and it can be used also with our "positional" numbers.

http://www.phy6.org/outreach/edu/roman.htm

The abacus (the Chinese "suanpan" or a derivative of it, as it is still used in some eastern countries) is - in the hands of someone used to it - very fast, I have seen people be on par or outperform a "westerner" trying to do the same operation on a pocket calculator, I wouldn't be surprised if the Romans abacus was as fast as that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_abacus

the base as decimal (or actually bi-quinary) is the same.

[thetruthseeker1]

Did you read my other comment about why Fibonacci promoted the decimal number system? Because, at least he thought in his qualitative assessment that the Decimal number system was better and he brought in its adoption in the roman world (Feel free to look it up).

All I was trying to say was the article is very superficial and does not capture the "real value" zero eventually provided.