What is the difference?

Stick a shift light in it
Haven't seen one of those in the instrument cluster. I recall seeing a little chrome blob under the dash on 4-speed cars. The ones I remebered had a square amber lens that announced that Reverse was now engaged. IIRC it was connected to the backup light circuit. In those days you had to put stick-shift cars into reverse before you could get the key out.

Yessir, a lot of regulatory foolishness going on back in the day. The gubmit was trying hard to save us from ourselves.