Since I don't see this problem posted already, I must be doing something strange.....when rotating the fortress in the mechanical age, I can only get it to stop on the main island and the first small island immediately next to it. I cannot get it to stop on the second small island or the empty quadrant. No matter how careful I am with the rotation when going from the main or first islands, I always end up back at the main island. The "trigger" sounds also match this in that they only ever signal that I have hit the main island or the first island (i.e. I can only get it to signal two of the four sounds).
I've played Myst completely through elsewhere (e.g. on the iphone and realMyst) and don't have this problem, so I am relatively sure I am executing the rotation correctly; can anyone else verify that they have no problem stopping the rotation at all 4 spots? I have the solution written down, so don't worry about spoiling, but I want to make sure this puzzle works properly so my dad can give Myst a try for the first time. Thanks!

I can attest that, while it is not impossible to have the tower rotate towards the other islands, it is extremely difficult for some reason. Only two of the islands seem to want to be accessible to the player. Rotating the tower to the others seems to be completely random luck, and you'll simply have to keep trying until it decides to cooperate. It may be an issue with the Masterpiece Edition, which introduced a bug or two in comparison to the original Myst.

Thanks for the response; after playing extensively with it for an extremely long time, I was finally able to get it to stop on the second island but, as you mentioned, it seemed to be random luck; and I can't even remotely reliably repeat it and it behaves nothing like the rotation simulator. Still no luck hitting the 'empty' location (not that that's needed to get off the island, just further indication of the problem).

Aye - experiencing the same.
Frustrations galore

Yeah, I've just been having this problem too. It's completely broken... I had the original Myst years ago and it reliably and predictably worked like the simulator. With this it seems to be completely broken. You'll go from south (the starting point) to east and then back to south. Occasionally I'll get it as far as north and then it'll either miss west and go back to south or go all the way round to east again. I want to go west so I can walk down the bridge and look out to sea...

Found this thread: http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/153106941/m/1661075965

So it's not just us.

Getting the third island isn't random, but the timing is definitely not where it should be. I recall that once I got the hang of it I could hit it pretty reliably (which is not to say it isn't broken). As for the fourth position with no island, I'm pretty sure it's always been impossible to go there, at least in the 2D versions.

No, I remember walking down the bridge to nothing but sea very distinctly.

Huh, I'll take your word for it then. I haven't played the original release in 15 years, so it could certainly be different. I've just never been able to hit the empty position in ME.

Oh well, once the MOHAWK engine support in ScummVM improves we might be able to play ME glitch free through that. One day...

Huh..3 years later, and this is still an issue. Found this post while looking up why I can't get the tower to rotate. At first I thought I was just screwing it up, but then I used an actual timer to time the rotation in the simulator. No go with the real deal.

I don't think the timing in the simulator and the actual building are the same. It tried to go by that on feeling and got nowhere. What you need to focus on is the rythm itself I think. Don't know how to describe it, but there's a constant de/acceleration taking place when the building/simulation rotates. Inbetween deceleration and acceleration is where the different islands are. You can keep track of that motion by looking at the mechanical wheels and listening well.

I played realmyst though, didn't have any problems there. It could be they eased things up for this game, this puzzle is quite forgiving as it corrects small inaccuracies for the player. Maybe that's a new addition?

No, it worked fine in the original version and from what you say it sounds like it works correctly in realMyst too. However this puzzle is definitely broken in the Masterpiece version.

Three years later maybe, but the game has not been updated in about 10 or more. Since it was released. There is not going to be any fix for this, but I can tell you for a fact that even with this glitch, you can "Complete" the age, getting both pages.

This bug was present back when the Masterpiece Edition originally released, it's not a compatibility bug (and therefore not within the scope of GOG's work).
You couldn't fix this kind of bug without the source code really anyway.