Say Leland; you do Luddite Rants well. I had a Denon yrs ago that had a real time counter. It was a backlit numerical display in minutes and seconds of time left on the tape. I know some guys will tell you they could figure that out on the tape counter but I can't see anyone doing that on the fly. The thing was so accurate that it would let me know exactly how many seconds were left on a tape. I used to make comp tapes where the song would end exactly 5 seconds before the tape ran out so it sounded like a proffessional tape. No more 35 sec's of silence at the end of a tape; it was great. The local FM station used to play the new album of the week on Saturday evening. They would set it up so you could tape by letting you know way in advance then playing the whole album through one side then breaking so you could change the tape. I had a whole collection of great tapes for the car.