NIKON FM10 What does it all mean, if anything?

I have a Nikon FM10...does FM stand for anything? How about the 10?

As I am reading all I can on these forums, I am finding that there

are a great deal of acronyms and other abbreviations that I don't

know. I am trying to learn the lingo and get with the jargon but I

am wondering if when discussing equipment if the makers letters and

numbers mean anything in particular? If anyone has anything that

might help me out it would be wonderful! I sure can't wait to break

the codes, find the keys and understand this new language, Thanks~

Fully Manual--the 10?

--evan

Nikons' first SLR was the F; I've seen various explanations about what 'F' stood for including the first letter of the designer's last name. In the late 70's, Nikon introduced a smaller lighter series of cameras including the FM and FE. The FM had a mechanical shutter, while the FE had an electronic shutter. I've never seen anything definitive on the subject, but I always associated the 'M' and 'E' with the shutter types. The FM evolved into the FM2 and FM2n; the FE evolved into the FE2 (each evolution added to the feature set a bit, but the cameras still featured the shutter type they were originally known for).

Of late, Nikon introduced the FM3a. This has a hybrid shutter that works mechanically without batteries, but works electronically with batteries. Several folks have commented that it might be more aptly named the FE3, as it has the feature set of the FE2 + the mechanical shutter ability.

So where did FM10 come from? I don't know. The M is consistent with the mechanical shutter. The camera is manufactured by Cosina, and I assume they wanted to pick 'a number' that was far enough 'out of sequence' to clearly differentiate it from the FM, FM2, FM2n, FM3a. FWIW, Olympus had an OM10 that was their entry level camera several years back (separate from their OM1, OM2 class of cameras), maybe Nikon thought that echoing that nomenclature would ring some bells with folks.