Does anyone remember a trackball with this description?

[ssokolow]

When I was a little kid, my father would sometimes bring home a Macintosh SE from work. When he did, he'd bring an Apple Extended Keyboard and a pointing device and it would sometimes be a G5431 mouse... but sometimes it would be a very specific trackball.

I've been searching off and on for years, including having an eBay watch with e-mail notifications on any and all ADB trackballs in case a familiar thumbnail shows up, but I haven't been able to find any evidence of it anywhere on the Internet so far and, based on all the other childhood things I've tracked down, my brain prefers to forget memories rather than corrupting them in any significant way. ("significant way" in that I forgot that the "music video" on the inside cover of the 1993 Dennis the Menace (Beano) annual used a font instead of hand-drawn lettering like the rest of the book.)

I remember it having a casing styled to match the AEK and, most significantly, while it loosely resembled photos I've seen of an Abaton Propoint trackball, I clearly remember that the buttons were on the right, neither one had a circular cut-out, and the small button was above the large one. (I assume it was meant to perform a secondary function, but I didn't have the extension to enable that, so they both did the same thing.)

Here's a diagram of the layout I remember:



In case it helps to narrow things down, at the time, my father worked for ComputerLand. I believe it was in some cubicle/skyscraper-based job in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, near Union Station, because he later worked for SHL Systemhouse, he brought me into the office after hours once or twice for one of those jobs, I know that's where I saw my first colour Macintosh prior to the iMac and where I encountered caddy-loading CD drives, and I don't remember any mention of where he physically worked changing.

 

[Forrest]

Looks a little like a Kensington ADB Turbo Mouse https://forum.trackballs.eu/viewtopic.php?t=104

 

[ssokolow]

Looks a little like a Kensington ADB Turbo Mouse https://forum.trackballs.eu/viewtopic.php?t=104

I did see those and they're definitely not what I'm looking for for the following reasons:

1. All the Kensington trackballs models I've ever found pictures of have had an ambidextrous layout while the one I remember very distinctly had one large button and one small button, both on the right side.
2. The trackball I remember had no humps for rotary encoders on the shell and the shell had a curve to it.
3. The top of this trackball had a completely open well for the trackball. I remember trivially lifting the ball out to poke at the rollers.
4. The trackball pictured in your link follows the design language of the Macintosh Plus, while I remember this trackball's design feeling matched to the Apple Extended Keyboard... as if someone had taken the CAD file for some unreleased "separable numeric keypad" variant of the Apple Extended Keyboard's shell and based a trackball on it. (Swooped top, Ledge which overhangs a vertically serrated lower shell, and two ADB ports, one at the back of each side, like the AEK.)

There is a later revision of the Kensington Turbo Mouse (which, for historical reference, the link is selling as Model 64100 Version 4.0) which is more matched to the AEK's design language, but it has a hump in the middle of the housing and it still has the ambidextrous design.

While I've never seen a picture of an Abaton Propoint from the side, so many details of the "from the top" picture of the Worthpoint page I linked match that I really wish I had the time to brute-force comb through old magazines on the Internet Archive to see if what I'm remembering ever showed up as either a different Abaton product or a different revision of this one.

(Alter the layout of the pictured trackball to match the diagram I drew years before encountering that Worthpoint page, account for potential drift in my not remembering that thick a rim on the ball well relative to the size of the ball, and the visible portion would be a perfect match for what I remember.)

Heck, these [two] [other] Worthpoint pictures of the same product reinforce that I seem to be remembering some kind of left-handed/pinkie-driven variant model of the Abaton Propoint with enough space around the ball to allow for neither button to have a corner missing. They depict ADB cables getting plugged in on both sides in exactly the spots I remember and hint at the top being a shelf hovering above a recessed lower case, and one shows roller positioning not inconsistent with my memories.

 

[lobust]

This one matches your description perfectly except for the button layout: https://mouses.info/1988-asher-turbo-trackball/

Is it possible that your dad had several different trackballs and your memory is amalgamating them into one device that didn't actually exist? Of course I'm not discounting the possibility that you have remembered it perfectly and the device is simply lost to time!

 

[ssokolow]

This one matches your description perfectly except for the button layout: https://mouses.info/1988-asher-turbo-trackball/

Is it possible that your dad had several different trackballs and your memory is amalgamating them into one device that didn't actually exist? Of course I'm not discounting the possibility that you have remembered it perfectly and the device is simply lost to time!

I am 100% certain that both buttons were on the same side and of different sizes... more than any other detail without a doubt.

...and, seeing a second device without a rim around the ball well, I'm growing more confident in my memory that the device I remember had some kind of a rim around the ball well. If not a raised one like the Abaton one I linked, then at least a recessed one like the v4.0 Kensington I linked. (Except that I know it didn't have a hump across the whole faceplate like the Kensington)

As for my memory amalgamating, I've never found it to do that, and I was a computer-fixated kid on the autism spectrum, which makes it even less likely it would happen for a computer peripheral. If anything, I'm surprised I never looked at and memorized the brand or name... I think because it resembled the keyboard enough that I assumed it was an Apple product that was officially paired with the AEK.

 

[finkmac]

the ch products rollermice have an apple keyboard 1 / aek1 style curve... but otherwise don't match


I just saw this one too:

 

[ssokolow]

the ch products rollermice have an apple keyboard 1 / aek1 style curve... but otherwise don't match

I don't remember seeing them in my searching, so thank you for making me aware of their existence if nothing else.

 

[ssokolow]

Found another Worthpoint entry for the Abaton I was describing my memory relative to, which does show the undersides (apparently I was searching "Abaton ADB" when broadening my search, and this only shows up for "Abaton Propoint"), so we now know it lacks the AEK-like "serrations" on the lower shell but does have the overhang I remember.

When I can spare a moment, I'll make an annotated collage to elaborate on what I remember.

 

[olePigeon]

@ssokolow Thanks for pointing out Abaton. I'm having fun discovering all the accessories they made. They really stuck to the Macintosh II design asthetic and did a great job. Even their modem looks great.

Incidentally, is it possible Abaton made a left-handed version of their mouse? That would put the buttons on the right side.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I vaguely remember a two part version of this one that might have had a single button:



With NumPad on left, having only a single button on the right side of the mouse might make some sense. A numeric input junkie uses the right pinkie a lot, so right button on the trackball would come naturally to accountants or spreadsheet jockeys. be they left or right handed.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

LATE edit:
Southpaws would be inclined to use their thumb in the same manner, but would more likely be accustomed to having lever actuated "adding machine" on the right side, using right pinkie in the same manner as right handed number crunchers.

 

[ssokolow]

@ssokolow Thanks for pointing out Abaton. I'm having fun discovering all the accessories they made. They really stuck to the Macintosh II design asthetic and did a great job. Even their modem looks great.

Incidentally, is it possible Abaton made a left-handed version of their mouse? That would put the buttons on the right side.

Certainly possible. "Develop skill in tracking down harder-to-find information on pre-Internet products" is still a work in progress for me, so I can't rule it out.

(The closest I got is that, to solve another one of these "rediscovery TODOs", I downloaded a copy of the complete BYTE magazine archive and grepped through the OCRed Internet Archive search-text indexes to track down an article on computers in the soviet union that I remember skipping past as a nerdy little kid for not being technical enough to hold my interest, and I've been meaning to return to those OCR indexes to trawl through all mentions of Abaton and Trackball.)