1st gen VSS and/or odometer?!!

96 Taco 2wd automatic ex cab: does it have an odo/speedo cable or a Vehicle Speed Sensor, or- both?

After rebuilding my entire front suspension due to upper balljoint failure (another story in itself) when I first started driving my truck again I noticed a noise coming from behind the instrument cluster which sounded to me like an odometer cable in need of lube. It was always most noticeable in the mornings before it had warmed up - the sound faded pretty much to inaudibility by the end of the day. I planned on pulling the instrument cluster and lubing it but things came up and it wasn't a priority.
Time passed...one day the speedometer cable started bouncing around like crazy and then it just quit. (stopped moving). The odometer did not, however; not completely, anyways. It has registered some 19 miles in the three months since it quit- and I've put probably 2000 miles on it in that time period. The Check Engine Light took at least a month to come on- go figure. Code scanner throws an 0500-vehicle speed sensor, which is not exactly what I'd figured, which was odo cable. Bought new VSS at Napa. Went to install it, and, well, its not the same part. Not identical. Bolt spacing will work, EXCEPT that what's on top of the tranny has two bolts, the new VSS has only one. The wire connector appears to be the same configuration, EXCEPT the original makes a 90 degree turn where it is molded atop the sensor housing. The new one does not. Also the sensor diameter does not appear to be the same- the new one is maybe half the circumference of the original. So I'm under the truck figuratively scratching my head, thinking I've misidentified the part, or missing- something. Especially since there is an item at the back of the tranny which HAS to be an odo cable, it just can't be anything else. I gave it up for the moment and went to do some research. The FSM -well, my digital copy is not very user-friendly and I was pressed for time so I looked at both Haynes and Chilton- which were so vague as to be useless on the subject. I went back to Napa in the a.m. and the counterperson and I spent over an hour researching and trying to figure out if the one I bought was the correct part-even pulled the full VIN to confirm model year, etc. The result? Inconclusive. We looked at VSS drawings and pictures for Toyotas made ten years before and after mine- 4wds were also included in our search. Some didn't even resemble mine and some had similarities but none were very close. (I had my digital camera in the store with me for reference- next time I'll take more pictures!)
So-
does my truck have BOTH a VSS and a cable? (Napa couldn't say for sure). And why would the new part differ so much from the original?
Oh, the former owner, my roomie, just came in and answered part of the question-the truck DOES definitely have an odo cable (I remember when he replaced it but had to confirm).
The registration is up next month and it has to pass smog-which can't happen with an inoperative speedometer and the CEL on. I still have the new part-but am hesitant to install it. Has anyone else run into a similar problem?
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this- I welcome any thoughts or info you might care to share.

 

for the benefit of anyone seeking the answer to this same question:
the 1996 Tacoma 2wd 2RZ-FE auto trans does NOT have a VSS ("vehicle speed sensor"), as such-. It DOES have a "speedometer driven gear" that the speedometer cable attaches to atop the tranny . Tacomas had speedo cables for the first couple of years they were in production, then Toyota switched to using VSS's. VSS systems, as I understand, uses electronic sensors (usually wheel-mounted) which record and transmit rpm data to the ECU -which then sends some sort of signal to the instrument cluster (my 'understanding' gets a little fuzzy somewhere around here ....)

 

I’m having the same issue now. P0500 code. 95 2wd tacoma. Speedo still works so I’m assuming the cable is still good. Is there a speed sensor behind the cluster that needs to be replaced?