I hear ya, Mac, but this doohickey wasn't connected to anything, electrical or mechanical. My stepfather and I opened the deck up and looked. All it did was go "click" when you turned it from one position to another with a screwdriver through a hole in the panel. Note that I did run it via stepdown transformer in Germany, so tapes I made there play just fine in the U S and A.

"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."