Thanks Laura for the informative post. This topic is so interesting, I think we'll skip the original poster's question and focus on the history of Shimano parts. lol, I'm joking.
But, really, I did want to point out a couple of sites I found on the history of Shimano parts:
In English:
http://datenbanken.freepage.de/traut/SHIMANO.html
In German:
http://www.fa-technik.adfc.de/Herste...o/Gruppen.html