NEC UltraLite

The NEC UltraLite was an MS-DOS-based portable computer in a "notebook" size.

The product was originally developed by an NEC Japan telecommunications engineering team that was trying to make an inexpensive lightweight terminal for programming PABX systems. In 1988, as NEC was trying to create products to update their best selling MultiSpeed, the NEC engineering team in charge of developing personal computers showed the UltraLite to a product management team from NEC Home Electronics USA.

Tom Martin, the Vice President in charge of the group asked, "Can you make this thing run MS-DOS"? When an affirmative response was received, the NEC team knew they had a hit product on their hands.

The product was launched shortly before COMDEX in October 1988 at a gala event in New York City. It was applauded by the media, who were dying to find a small lightweight computing platform that could be used for note-taking and article writing. Unfortunately the publicity surrounding the UltraLite did not reflect itself in consumer demand. This was due to the UltraLite's two Achilles heels ... the lack of a hard drive which prevented storage of one's work and the use of a relatively slow 8086-compatible processor when the market was moving to the 80286 class. Actually the Ultralite was able to store your work (or data) three different ways. It came with a 2 megabyte flash drive in a place of a hard drive, it had an optional external floppy drive and you could use credit card sized, battery powered flashcards. The main downside to the Ultralite (which weighed only 4 pounds) was its price. It sold for between 4 and 5 thousand dollars which was significantly higher than other, albeit heavier, less innovative, computers of the time. Given its use of the flash drive boot times were actually faster than 80386 class computers.

So although the UltraLite ushered in a new era in portable computing, its original design as a telecommunications maintenance terminal proved to be its commercial downfall. Commercial success in that product category was not achieved until Compaq launched its LTE brand nearly 12 months later.

PC Magazine featured the UltraLite on its cover in November 1988 and shortly thereafter journalists began referring to the A4 sized computer as a "notebook" to distinguish it from the larger and heavier laptops of the time.

Specifications

• CPU: NEC V30 at 4.92 and 8.14MHz
• RAM: 640k
• Storage: battery-backed storage memory
  • PC-17-01 had 1Mb
  • PC-17-02 had 2Mb
• Graphics: CGA compatible, 320x200x4 or 640x200x2
• built-in 2400bps modem
• RS-232C port
• optional accessory: external 3.5 floppy drive reader

Other Models

There are other models in the NEC Ultralite series -- for example, the Ultralite SX/20, which was released in 1991. The Ultralite SX/20 had a 80386 processor and runs Microsoft Windows 3.0

Others in the series include the NEC Ultralite 286F ,286V, and the NEC Ultralite Versa models.