== Vinculum or division sign? == 

 We have: 
 : In this more developed form, the numeral system can symbolize any rational number using only 13 symbols (the ten digits, decimal marker, vinculum or division sign, and an optional prepended dash to indicate a negative number. 

 The appearance of the division sign (I assume meaning the solidus "/", since "÷" seems even less reasonable) makes little sense here, especially as an alternative to the vinculum.  There is a slightly different numeral system that can symbolize any rational number using only 12 symbols (the ten digits, solidus, and dash); this system doesn't use the decimal marker either.  One could, I suppose, say "decimal marker and vinculum or division sign" in place of "decimal marker, vinculum or division sign", but there is really no point.  After all, the system for rational numbers using the solidus is not a simple generalisation of the positional system that is being discussed here in the way that the system with the decimal marker and vinculum is.  There is no end to the systems that we could describe, if we wanted to, as being used with the Hindu–Arabic number system, including E notation (which is probably closer to the basic positional system that we are describing than fractions written with a solidus), things like the Ackermann function to refer to very large numbers, surds for solvable algebraic numbers, symbols like "i" for various hypercomplex numbers, and so on and on and on. 

 So, I'm removing the reference to the division sign. 

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