Although there isn't any official 'merger' b/w CASIO and MATSUSHITSA CORP. (TECHNICS/PANASONIC), 2 of the key engineers on the KN projects left TECHNICS early '98 and started working with/for CASIO. By then, the MZ project was already on the design board. Modifications, adjustments etc were in-evitable; hence the slight resemblance in layout and functions.