>>Zero based address is the answer to "how many positions away from the start", not "which one". So your analogy is a bit flawed.
>>
>That interpretation is the one you've learned because it's been in use for most of the lives of computers.
>
>If you were designing a factory floor, would you call the first machine "Machine Zero?"
>I wouldn't.
>
>When you see people at a football game signifying their team is the best team, do they hold up a Zero?
>"We are number zero!!!"
>I've never seen that, have you?

But then in mechanical machine world you don't apply things like "push it a bit harder" because the machine doesn't have a push, it has a wheel you have to turn, or a dial, or a lever etc. The technology influences the language since day one. You're just applying analogies from the previous generation - and right, I'm also in the one-based camp (I love Fox for being there too), but knowing how these things work I don't get exactly thrown off by zero-based. To me it's just like the difference between the two kinds of bicycle breaks - on these you have to pull the handle, on those you have to pedal backwards.

You got used to on-off switches which require you to hold it for four seconds before they do turn off, right? Because it's not really a switch, it's a software controlled key passing your "switch off, please" command, and whoever designed them decided that just plain zero seconds shouldn't be the rule, let's make it four seconds. I've also got used to some systems being zero based, so what. You don't expect that the best team is number zero? I don't expect a simple light switch to be on a four-second rule - but I'm not surprised if a light switch on a phone, or the off switch for the phone itself, is on four seconds. If tomorrow they introduced the four-second light switch, I'd curse them to the full extent of my vocabulary (and trust me, serbian is rich and strong in that area) but I'd get used to it.