1982 RCA VCR estate sale find, looks good but doesn't work

[Adam]

I've been looking around for a nice older VCR for some time, usually I find ones that are all scratched and cracked and look like they've been tossed off a roof by a pack of monkeys, but still work. Today I picked up this nice looking 1982 RCA, I brought it home, plugged it in, hooked it up, found that the tuner worked really well (I could pull in ch 56 with no antenna at all), I could also set the clock. Next I put a tape in, and nothing, none of the buttons with anything to do with operating the tape player do anything at all. I've never attempted any VCR repair beyond simple stuff like changing belts before, but I'd like to get this unit working again. Is this the sort of problem something I could likely track down and fix if dug up a schematic, or is this one of those things where there would be no way to fix it without replacing large amounts of parts from another identical VCR?