> [ naming foo ]
> 
> Just where did they get these names from?

I'm not _sure_, but i think that they slowly evolved from the VAX...
(Note that the following is more speculation than "truth"

I believe that at time's i've heard of a machine called the "pvax" --
i think it was one of the desktop models?  I could then imagine that
the a machine wish similar hardware was produced, but with a faster,
MIPS processor, so pvax -> pmax...

the use of '3' and '4' is relatively obvious: cpu type (r3k, r4k).

Given all of that, the rest of the designations would be size/shape,
and power dependent...


chris