Trak-Ball controller

 

The photo below first appeared in the September/October issue of Atari Age.  From Dan Kramer:

The first image shown is the first "appearance model" Trak-Ball that I fitted with working guts and brought to CES in 1982 for hands-on demos.  This singular item now resides in my bedroom.  Note the red & green ATARI buttons in the keypads that are only found in 5200 prototype hardware!

Only two of the clear 5200 TrakBalls were built (by me) and I gave one to Will Alexander, one of our engineers who contributed to the circuit design. Ten sets of clear CX53 TB plastics were discarded by Mech Engineer Sharon Casella, who told me they were "a mistake". I begged two sets before she dumped them. Thus one is now in Curt Vendel's Atarimuseum and the other is in my closet.

 

  


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