Years ago, I knew Doyle Riley, who had his own line of studio flash equipment called Rilex. He died in 1994. Anyhow, he told me he had been the one who coined the name Vivitar. I believe he was involved in creating the Vivitar 283. (Riley was a strobe genius- his Rilex equipment was small and powerful, and late in life he synched up strobes at Madison Square Garden so they would not show up on TV.) Doyle Riley's explanation of the name Vivtar was a combination of the words "vivid" and "tar," which was a common tag on the end of names like Ektar. This conjured up the notion of something vivid and sharp. --- Rollei List - Post to rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx - Subscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org - Unsubscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org - Online, searchable archives are available at //www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list