Without Indians, there would be no zero

"How much more so if some Indian firm insists on using lakhs, crores and the Samvat era? The Indians are entitled, right? Indian culture invented the concept of zero, after all."

Well, 'Indians' did invent the concept of zero, but not the south Asian indians... It was actually my ancestors, the Olmec 'Indians' of what is today Mexico, that first used Zero:

According to wikipedia: "First use of the number The late Olmec had already begun to use a true zero (a shell glyph) several centuries before Ptolemy in the New World (possibly by the fourth century BC but certainly by 40 BC), which became an integral part of Maya numerals.

By 130, Ptolemy, influenced by Hipparchus and the Babylonians, was using a symbol for zero (a small circle with a long overbar) within a sexagesimal numeral system otherwise using alphabetic Greek numerals. Because it was used alone, not as just a placeholder, this Hellenistic zero is the earliest known documented use of zero as a number in the Old World. In later Byzantine manuscripts of his Syntaxis Mathematica (Almagest), the Hellenistic zero had morphed into the Greek letter omicron (otherwise meaning 70).

Another true zero was used in tables alongside Roman numerals by 525 (first known use by Dionysius Exiguus), but as a word, nulla meaning nothing, not as a symbol. When division produced zero as a remainder, nihil, also meaning nothing, was used. These medieval zeros were used by all future computists (calculators of Easter). An isolated use of their initial, N, was used in a table of Roman numerals by Bede or a colleague about 725, a true zero symbol.

The earliest known decimal digit zero is documented as having been introduced by Indian mathematicians about 300.

An early documented use of the zero by Brahmagupta dates to 628. He treated zero as a number and discussed operations involving this number. By this time (7th century) the concept had clearly reached Cambodia, and documentation shows the idea later spreading to China and the Islamic world, from where it is recorded to have reached Europe in the 12th century."

be well
toby

Windows XP64 is a non standard OS, Canon says

I love the Microsoft Fingerprint Reader, not having to enter long and complex passwords but use desktop biometrics instead is fabulous.

Except that Microsoft do not offer x64 drivers for this or their other biometric peripherals, and they don't plan to offer either ... when you ask them they say that these items are designed for consumer OS and x64 is a "professional" OS (like WinXP Professional?) for high end workstations.

These biometric devices licensed from a company called Digital Persona, and they have x64 drivers for their branding goods. But Microsoft haven't requested that they create x64 drivers for the Microsoft branded versions.

The Microsoft Fingerprint Reader is the only piece of hardware in my PC that does not have an x64 driver -- which is so ironic that it will prevent me from upgrading, until they fix this.

Stuart F

I'd like to point out that Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 is fully backwards-compatible with ALL 32-bit things. I don't know which 64-bit OS you're talking about, but it really irks me when I see incomplete or vaugely-written articles - anywhere. Can I ask you please re-investigate this, perhaps giving poor Microsoft the victim of the doubt for once? I think we should be encouraging them towards our 64-bit future, not molesting them away from it.

Name supplied

Egg and chicken
heh...Microsoft has a classic chicken and egg problem with XP64. No drivers for it because vendors (like Canon) see it as "high end" and are waiting to see demand before they commit to doing working.

Yet you're telling people check for drivers before getting XP64 so chances are they'll punt on it because there are no drivers available....

Name supplied