Somebody pointed out that the K2 was quite different from the rest of the K series, or for that matter from anything else pentax ever made, in terms of control layout and such. I've been looking over my new KX in comparison to the K2 and Spot F and it's got me thinking.
The KM and KX are pretty clearly spotmatic designs updated with a K-mount and some other improvements. The K2 looks like it was also based on Spotmatic technology (with the mirror-up lever in the same spot as the old meter-on, for example) but appears to be aiming at something different. I'd suggest that that something different was the Nikon Nikkormat EL, which was introduced a few years earlier as Nikon's first electronic-shutter AE camera. The K2 is actually MORE like the EL than it is like other Pentaxes. The K2 looks like an attempt to match or slightly one-up the EL, starting from a Spotmatic body. If the goal were simply to make a K-mount AE camera, one would expect it to look a lot more like the existing ESII (a fine camera, from what I can tell). It looks like the K2 and KX/KM are essentially two completely different development lines. KX and KM may be evidence of a bit of a technological stutter at Pentax, suggesting some timing issues in the rather rapid transition from Spotmatic SP F to MX/ME cameras and SMC-T to M lenses. Pentax had been working towards bayonet mount for a while by 1975. I've wondered about the name, too. There was a "K" type in the early days, top-of-the-line at the time I think. Gerjan suggests that it stands for "King", but given the K mount I'll bet some Japanese word like "best" or "progress" is hiding behind the "K". Myself I don't see the philosophical similarity between the Asahi Pentax K and the Pentax K2, whereas the Canon A2 makes sense to those of us who remember the A1. I also wonder if "X" as in KX, ZX-M, etc, has been used in any consistant nomenclature sense. It could stand for "old fashioned", essentially. I'd argue for "mechanical" but for the ZX series. DJE
