Oh yeah, that was Shimano's wonderful "You're going to use ONLY our shifter until the end of time." era. Thankfully it was short lived, but there are some pretty nice bikes afflicted with those horrible proprietary shifter bases. You can always use barcons or Shimano bar end shifters, and cut a notch out of some DT cable adjusters with a dremel. I have that on my 85 Schwinn Super Sport, and am using notched DT adjusters with Sante' shifters converted to bar ends.
And to think my ex boss at the bike shop offered me $200 for this piece of junk.
