Names are necessary. Some names have a meaning, while others are just names (long after their original meaning is lost). Italian name Bruno means "dark haired", but my friend Bruno is blond haired. Bruno is an Italian name rather appealing to German people, most of which are blond haired. Mauro means "Moor", but my friend Mauro has white skin and red hair, looking like a Viking.
After the original Asahi Pentax (aka AP), Asahi manufactured an improved version called the "S" (likely meaning Super), then the "K" went out (meaning it featured 1/1000 sec.). Then, new models were called respectively S2, S3, S1 (H2, H3, H1 in USA, after Heiland/Honeywell), being known as the S-series. Why S? Maybe because of their screw mount, maybe not. However, I find S-series to be a good designation for screw mount cameras. IMO, both the AP and the K are S-series cameras too. Then SV and S1a (H3v and H1a in USA) were S-series too. And then there was the Spotmatic and its many followers (SPII, SPIIa, SPF, SP500, SP1000, SL, ES, ESII). Were they more S-series or were they SP-series? That's pure matter of opinion. And then the K-revolution happened. Were the K-series named after the K-bayonet or the other way round? I believe we will never get a final answer to this question. Maybe K is related to some bayonet shape (although I can see very little if any K shape in that bayonet), or maybe K stands for King of bayonets. Who knows? So the K2 was named that way because it couldn't be just K, or maybe after the Hymalaian K2: a good name for a camera then at the top of the range (maybe the LX had to be called the Everest at the beginning :-) Do many of you know that the LX prototype was called the AP for some time? I have pictures of it. Fortunately, that name was replaced by LX prior to announcing it. Did you notice how often Pentax used the X too (KX, MX, LX, SFX, ZX-series)? Apparently the X is one of the best appreciated letters for industrial products. It could be because any unnamed new project can be designated Project X, then X becomes the true name of the project. Or it could be the X sounds well: mysterious and appealing. Or maybe both reasons combined. You can replace the * in the *ist and *ist D with an X and get an Xist (a camera which previously didn't exist :-) What's the meaning of all that mess I wrote above? You can just play with words at your leisure, get some meaning and leave some meaning aside. Official explanations can be found and spread after you find good (and sometimes awful) names for products. Ciao, Dario ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Roberts" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 2:08 PM Subject: Re: Origin of K mount name > Fred <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> Well, I long wondered why the K2 was so named until I learned of > >> the existence of the K. > > > >Well, Mark, I still don't follow your logic. Sure, there was a > >screwmount Pentax K, but so wasn't there also a Pentax S, too, etc. > >Why would Pentax have singled out the Pentax K (and not, say, the > >Pentax S) for the name for the K-mount and the first K bodies? > > Well, that *is* my point, actually. I'm wondering why they picked the > letter K rather than something else. > > -- > Mark Roberts > Photography and writing > www.robertstech.com >
