The Sharp Twincam cassette mechanism is a Sharp-only oddity that puts two cassettes one behind the other rather than the normal side-by-side configuration of twin cassette machines. The rear cassette gets all the usual transport functions + recording, while the front one can only play (and participate in high speed dubbing). I have only seen this mech fitted to radiocassette boomboxes / ghettoblasters / call-them-what-you-will. I live in New Zealand and we seem to have a lot of these units floating around in the secondhand market; many of these end up on my bench. There can be small variations between models but the basics are common. The mech usually needs complete disassembly, clean, and rebuild with new grease as whatever Sharp used originally seems to dry up. For whatever reason the mech also attracts the attention of people who like to jam screwdrivers into things and break them. The reel spindles are relatively complex as you can imagine, with separate drive on each axle for front and rear cassette, and the screwdriver fans usually manage to wreck one or both of these. The mech also has a lot of easily damaged plastic parts that also suffer. Sadly, the screwdriver fans also seem to have an appetite for busting aerials and losing the 50-70mm screws than hold the cases together! And they seldom (never) bag up the detached/broken parts and keep them for me... So, if anyone has Sharp Twincam boxes that are ready for the junk pile but may have good mechanisms, maybe even with aerials and the long screws, I would be keen to discuss acquiring the mechs and other parts.
