A trackball is basically a mouse upside down, with the ball that senses movement exposed at the top. Because the device as a whole does not move, it requires less desktop space than a mouse; and because the ball is moved with the user's fingers, the irritation of the desktop surface not providing enough friction to move the mouse's ball does not arise.
I got myself one of this model:
Or two, actually. I took one to work and plugged it into my computer there, and took it with me whenever I changed jobs, rather than use the mouse that was already there.
I've been through five or six of them over the years - the click buttons eventually wear out - but always the same model.
Until now. I went to order one online and found the price had increased to over five times as much as other models of wired trackballs. (I insist on wired auxiliaries on my computer, because they can't be mislaid.) The same manufacturer seemed to have changed its default model to this:
So I got one. What I hadn't taken into account is that it works differently. Where the old version has the ball between the buttons, so you move the ball with your right forefinger and hit the button with your thumb, the new model is the other way around. The ball is to the left of both buttons, and you move the ball with your right thumb.
Maybe I'd get used to this eventually, but I found it incredibly awkward. I had the deuce of a trouble placing the cursor even within a large box, let alone a small one.
I found an inexpensive trackball from a different manufacturer that doesn't look at all like my old one, but it has the ball in the middle. It looks like this:
So far it works fine. I hope it's sturdy and the buttons don't wear out too fast. It has one other potential problem. The ball doesn't click into place in the housing; it just sits there. That means if a cat knocks the device off the desk - a not unknown event - the ball will come out and roll off into an obscure corner and be hard to find. Well, I'll deal with it.
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