Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/03/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]The letter codes, "telegramme words", were common practice in the German optical industry at the time, which was before email, facsimile and even telex were business tools. Zeiss used it, too: "deltrintem"/"deltrentis" binoculars. And Novoflex is still using it!!! LEIEX, for instance, is an Exakta to Leica M39 adapter. 5 letter codes can encrypt almost 12 million articles (26^6=11.881.376), 5 digit numbers only 99,999 articles. And the letter codes are possibly easier to handle for the telegramme clerks. Initially there was some logic behind, using product names, abbreviations etc. (BOOWU=M39 version, BOWUM=M mount version). But with the growing number of articles and the wish to maintain 5 letter words, the logic got lost. Finally, in the mid/late 1950s Leica went digital. Hans-Peter