For a good $99 trackball often used for CAD work, take a look at http://us.kensington.com/html/2200.html. I've been using one on my desktop for 5-10 years instead of a mouse and love it. It's smooth and large enough for excellent control, plus it's fast, optical, and has low friction - good for zipping across a page with a flick of the fingers. And you don't have to move your hand all around - easy and efficient.
One accessory that's a must for me is a wrist cushion. This corrects the ergonomics of the tilted trackball base, letting my hand and wrist be straight and fingers curl naturally. One I found with the right height is: http://imakproducts.com/product.php?c=Wrist+/+Carpal+Tunnel&s=16 It's the same width as the trackball base, about 5" Hope this helps, Steve Bill Kendrick wrote: > So I've got three great tastes that I think can taste great together: > > 1. Linux & X-Window > 2. Stelladapter > 3. Atari Trakball > > All of us here know what #1 is. #2 is a device for PCs that allows you > to connect Atari video game controllers (joystick, paddles, driving > controllers) to a modern PC's USB port. > (See: http://www.pixelspast.com/products/ ) And #3 is the trackball > device for the Atari 2600 (VCS) and Atari 8-bit computers from the 1980s > (See: http://www.atariage.com/2600/controllers/con_AtariTrakball2.jpg ) > > The Trakball works similar to ball mice, just upside-down > (See: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/mouse2.htm ). On the Atari, > you had to use machine-language to read the bits coming in from > the joystick port -- BASIC was too slow to read the pulses in such a > way to make any sense. > > On a PC, I imagine using Stelladapter + Trakball and then converting > USB joystick input (which ends up being an analog interpretation of > the Atari's digital joystick up/down/left/right bits). > > Anyone feel like helping me code this? :) (read: coding it for me) > > OTOH, I suppose I could look for a good trackball for PCs. > It'd need to be arcade-quality, not some tiny Logitech thumb-controlled > thing. Something like this: http://www.xgaming.com/trackball.shtml > Not like this: http://pan1.fotovista.com/dev/1/3/46410031/l_46410031.jpg > > But it's even larger than my Atari Trakball, and relatively expensive ($60). > Worse, it'd be Yet Another Device to have hanging around the house... > whereas I already HAVE the Atari Trakball and Stelladapter. :) > > > Along with using it to demonstrate Tux Paint, I've got another classic > game I'm planning to clone -- an arcade game that played with a trackball. > > _______________________________________________ vox-tech mailing list [email protected] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
