Ever heard of an HP 44A (71B look-alike)

[J-F Garnier]

The HP44 name was commonly used by the PPC community to speak about the HP41 successor new-desired-feature list, and was indeed also used by HP as a early product name. The HP44 name appears for instance in this HP document about HP71 bugs (look at the page headers).

However, I'm surprised by the 1BBBB version (note that the VER$ indicates "HP71" not "HP44"), it would have made more sense to find a HP44 proto with a 0AAAA ROM for instance.
Maybe did someone collect a early proto housing, and used it to build a combo with the electronic from a standard production unit?

I'm also surprised by the A suffix of 44A. It's not in line with the calculator product names of the time.

J-F

Added: See this old post about differences on keyboard on a supposed HP44 proto, that are not found here.