"normal" vs. "Mursten" vs. "Minitalia"

[Steffen]

We currently have a numbering problem on the PT, and the more I think over it, the more complicated it gets.

Can we find a solution together?

LEGO itself has produced variants of their own bricks: "Mursten" and "Minitalia".

"Mursten" predates the bricks of today. For example, the 2x4 Brick existed in several "slotted" variants, e.g.
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptdetail.cg...3001mc.dat
The word "Mursten" is composed of the 2 danish words "mur" (meaning "wall") and "sten" (has the same origin as "stone",
but of course means "brick" here). Thus "mur sten" are "bricks to build a wall".



"Minitalia", as I learned today, was a variant of LEGO in the 1970's, which they had created to circumvent
importing rules of Italy at that time:
http://www.lucajuventino.altervista.org/...lia_EN.htm
http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/Minitalia
http://www.brickset.com/browse/themes/?theme=Minitalia



Both variants have differences in the appearance of the parts.
No problem for us, we can model them:
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptscan.cgi?q=mursten
http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptscan.cgi?q=minitalia
We already also have "Minitalia" primitives - no problem so far.

However, we currently _have_ a problem with the part numbers:

For the "mursten" variant, the current status quo on the PT is to take the "normal" part number, append an "m" and then
"something else". Example: for the normal 2x4 brick (3001.dat), the parts tracker currently carries the mursten variants
3001ma.dat
3001mb.dat
3001mc.dat
3001md.dat
3001me.dat
, cf. http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptscan.cgi?q=3001m

But for the "minitalia" variant, just an "a" gets appended:
3001a.dat
, cf. http://www.ldraw.org/cgi-bin/ptscan.cgi?q=minitalia

That's reasonable, because the "minitalia" variant 3001a.dat in fact is just a moulding variant of the 3001.dat.
If you see it this way, things could just stay as they are now.

But on the other hand, for LEGO most probably these parts never carried the number 3001,
because both required completely separate moulds.

I now see the numberings
3001.dat
3001ma.dat
3001a.dat
clashing. The "m" for example could mean "mursten" or "minitalia". I don't understand why "mursten" gets its "m",
and "minitalia" does not.

We have several opportunities here, as
- we have u.....dat numbers
- we don't have a 8.3 filename restriction anymore.
Thus, we have several solution alternatives:

(SOLUTION A)
leave things as they are now, i.e.:
"mursten" is "normal part number plus m plus something else"
"minitalia" is "normal part number plus a,b,c,d,e, ... moulding variant suffix"

(SOLUTION B)
use separate, new u.......dat numbers for "mursten" and "minitalia" parts

(SOLUTION C)
use long filenames and make e.g.
3001.dat
3001-minitalia.dat
3001-mursten-a.dat
3001-mursten-b.dat
3001-mursten-c.dat

My problem is: each day I think this over, I favor a different solution :-(((((
solution A is very simple
solution B is very systematic
solution C is very easy to understand

what should we do?
Is there a solution D which I forgot? Which one do you favor?