exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Looks as good as it did in the Auction listing. I felt it was a good price for UK Trak ball which for some strange reason are dirt cheap in USA and expensive in UK.

alexh wrote: 17 Apr 2026 10:53 Looks as good as it did in the Auction listing. I felt it was a good price for UK Trak ball which for some strange reason are dirt cheap in USA and expensive in UK.

Yeah, it is in VGC and it was a very good price as they don't come up often and are often usually double what I paid.

It's odd they are cheap in the US though as I had one BITD so I know they were sold in the UK. Perhaps it's just more survived in the US?

OK, so the CX80 is apart for a service:


It requires a fair bit of force to get the sensors out plus the plastic filler piece where the trakball/joystick mode switch and the cable enter the case. Nothing broken though :)

Atari do thoughtfully mark the connections with the wire colours on the PCB though:


And as you can see the cable sheath has pulled back making the strain relief a bit iffy:


So that's next on the repair list, since I'm waiting on parts for all my other projects...

Don't think I've ever seen inside a trackball before :thumbup:

Good oldskool rounded tracks as well !

exxos wrote: 21 Apr 2026 11:38 Don't think I've ever seen inside a trackball before :thumbup:

Good oldskool rounded tracks as well !

I know, the PCBs look almost hand drawn, very nice :)

Here's a look at both sides:


And the cable/strain relief is looking a lot better.


I'm just going to pop a drop of superglue in at the top where the strain relief is thickest to be sure it doesn't pull out again.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 21 Apr 2026 12:52 I know, the PCBs look almost hand drawn, very nice :)

Yeah, they probably were :lol:

Ironic really that these days we have technical papers saying not to do right angled tracks etc, which is common these days , and yet in the 1980's , they had it nailed down by default using wavy tracks! :lol:

exxos wrote: 21 Apr 2026 13:24 Ironic really that these days we have technical papers saying not to do right angled tracks etc

Enter the microchip world today where transistors have to leave space so the electrons can exist in more than one place at once.

exxos wrote: 21 Apr 2026 13:24

rubber_jonnie wrote: 21 Apr 2026 12:52 I know, the PCBs look almost hand drawn, very nice :)

Yeah, they probably were :lol:

Ironic really that these days we have technical papers saying not to do right angled tracks etc, which is common these days , and yet in the 1980's , they had it nailed down by default using wavy tracks! :lol:

Exactly :)

I have an Amstrad Alt-386 laptop and whoever deigned the PCB only had right angled instruments to hand, it's really quite ugly.

alexh wrote: 21 Apr 2026 13:34

exxos wrote: 21 Apr 2026 13:24 Ironic really that these days we have technical papers saying not to do right angled tracks etc

Enter the microchip world today where transistors have to leave space so the electrons can exist in more than one place at once.

:dizzy:

rubber_jonnie wrote: 21 Apr 2026 13:39 I have an Amstrad Alt-386 laptop and whoever deigned the PCB only had right angled instruments to hand, it's really quite ugly.

ahh sounds like the Falcon then. It was really a rush job on the autorouter on that one. Everything is right angled when it could could have easy wins of 45 deg. Not much pride in PCB work anymore is there.