The pictures on the left of each group of two are of this strange Versa, while the pictures on the right are of a bog-standard, late 1993/early 1994 NEC Versa PC-430-XXXX 33MHz 486 model of the Ultralite Versa. The original Ultralite Versa did not come wiht a built-in trackball, it came with an external PS/2 Microsoft Ballpoint "Mouse" trackball that clipped to the side of the keyboard. At first, I was assuming this was likely a 40E with a UltraLite Active Matrix panel on it, as if someone had this under corporate contract circa 1994, and I.T. had a broken PC-400/410/430 to pull the screen assembly from to replace.

But once we click on and look at the pictures, it becomes more obvious that something is very odd about this machine. The first clue was that screen, but that's an easy miss - I could throw a NEC "VERSA M/75", "VERSA P/75", "VERSA" E, or a "UltraLite VERSA" LCD easily onto any Versa laptop in this series but the "S" and "V" models - put it on e-bay, and call it whatever the screen says, and nobody would bat an eye and most people - at least 75% - would miss the model# and either think they got gyped, or would be blissfully unaware the system is faster or slower than they expected.

See what I'm getting at - it's that BOTTOM TAG that clues in the entire reason for this special page. This is not a "PC-400" but an "OP-400-4403" built in 1994 based on the serial# (the first digit is the last digit in the year so 3=1993, 4=1994, 5=1995, 6=1996, and so on).

Looking at the model#, some things are a bit odd too. First off, the first digit of the model code is "4" - if that's the case, then that would have been a TOUCH model at the time, because there were only 4 models of screen when this came out, and "4" would have been the "640x480 Active Matrix Color with 3M Microtouch Technology". So maybe the screen was replaced....maybe not. The second digit is a "4" as well - most Versas were in design series "5" - which is PC - so maybe "OP" was a different "design series" back then?, there's a "0" where the HDD is - so maybe it came without a hard drive (user added, empty caddy?", but the "1" for memory is expected and it's very likely it had a 4MB module before someone replaced it with the obviously later 8MB module that's in it now.

However, this could put some water to the "E-series" debate I've been having since I commented on BBISHOPPCM's World's video on youtube where he restored a "NEC VERSA V/50" that had a detachable screen. I almost got in an arguement with another commenter that the "it IS a V/50 but they made them with both screen designs". Okay, but that seems very inconsistant and weird for a Japanese company. I would expect that kind of thing from NanTan in Taiwan, but not from NEC, especially given teh NEC Versas were only sold under 3 brands (NEC, NCR, and AT&T), not 1500.

Supposedly this would be a 20MHz Versa Ultralite based on the "400" in it's model number, likely featuring a motherboard designed to work with what would become the E-series chassis. IT could even just be a late short-run model used to use up the 20MHz CPU boards that they could not sell. Since the most popular version of the UltraLite Versa was the 25MHz PC-410-XXXX models with a Color TFT. That's assuming this is production, because I have also seen a PRototype M/75 on e-bay, and one guy on /r/retrobattlestations on Reddit has a Versa M/75 that was issued to his father or uncle by 3M and features the same rare "VERSAPEN" screen my M/75 has.