Hi Gil- I was at the NAMM show in Chicago in 1953. Getting stock to open my Music store.
They had a lot of instruments there and one of them was that Steel guitar with the pushbuttons. Magnatone.
I tried it out. You push a button and it changes the tuning. It took no effort. Every button gave you a different tuning. It was operated by Solenoids. A6-C#Minor-E7 was 3 ,I remembered.
It did the job , but when you pushed the button , it was a very loud noise.
So it wasn't usable to change during a song , you could do it, but it would be very noticeable. Not very practicable to me.
I already had my used Pre-War 6 pedal Gibson Electra-harp , which I bought in 1945.....al 
[This message was edited by Al Marcus on 16 December 2002 at 08:39 PM.]
