I've been seeing the term "pretotype" and tried to understand why that was being used in place of prototype.

Then I found an article that intended to explain the difference. The peak 'splainer was this part:

"One of the most famous examples of pretotyping is that of the Palm Pilot. When he had the idea for this product, the founder of Palm Computing, Jeff Hawkins, didn’t rush to build the device. He ran pretotypes to make sure that a) the product would work functionally and b) that people would actually want to buy and use them. He did this by mocking up a Palm Pilot using pieces of wood and paper, carrying it around for a few weeks and “using” it to see if it was valuable and to test other people’s interest in it. "

Ah, so exactly like a prototype. Well, that clears things up.