Well I have done some reading about this one now, it seems that it can't be a 79 model, although that's what the tech told me who did a repair on it years ago.
It does generally get excellent reviews for what it is, I liked it a lot.
I guess it makes sense as to why it did hundreds of gigs with no maintenance in the 1990s!
One site said they were made from 1987, I bought my first one used in about 1990, certainly no later than 1991, and I remember it being very old then... when u are in your early 20s that would still mean more than4 years or so, and it certainly looked it! That's the only mystery to me.
I'll get some pics as promised next time I'm over there.