The Atari 2600 Trakball

The Atari Trakball Concepts (A look at the original Designs)
 


        Another superb home version of the trakball.    Again Dan Kramer and Levon Mitchell did the electro-mechanicals on this controller and also did a special version (the Dan-Levon version :-) for the Atari home computers that when used with Missle Command and press CTRL-T would put the game into a true Trakball mode and allow the game to be played perfectly.    If there was one thing Atari knew how to do well for its home console, then designing and selling Trakballs was definitely one of them.   The Trakball, although originally designed for the Atari 2600, could also be used on the Atari 400/800, XL/XE computers and also the Atari 7800 PROsystem.    Two version were available, the CX-80 (shown above) and the CX-22 with selector switch to go from joystick to trakball mode.