Logitech Trackman Wheel Trackball - Should we not forget the gadgets of the past?

Hello, this is Munou.

I was overwhelmingly a mouse user, but I didn't want to take up space for a server mouse, so I pulled out this Logitech trackball that I bought and stored a long time ago, which is now rarely heard of.

The fact that it's so flashy also gives it the vibe of an old gadget, not something typical of 2023.

The reason I've only used mice until now is that I originally played games mainly like FPS and Minecraft, so I only used mice, and I had a resistance to trackballs.
But you don't know until you actually touch and use it, right? I judged that I, who had actually gotten used to the ThinkPad's TrackPoint and couldn't bring myself to use any other laptop, should be able to adapt.

The ball itself looks like the core of the sun with black spots, and I suspect these black spots also contribute to improving sensitivity and accuracy due to sensor-related design.

Since you operate the ball with your thumb, if it's too big, your finger might get tired, and if it's too small, it might be difficult to perform precise movements. This size doesn't cause fatigue and fits perfectly, at least for my relatively small hands.

It even has a thoughtful indentation.
At first, I felt some resistance, but once I got used to the fit of this indentation, more than I expected, it felt like it was sticking to my hand, and I couldn't go back to anything else.

The cable management holder is from Sanwa Supply.
Thanks to this, I can tidy up overly long cables.
Well, before that, my PC area is too cluttered, so it's kind of pointless...

This transparent (skeleton) design also gives off the vibe of products from the skeleton boom around the early 2000s.

Was the iMac the trigger for the boom? If there are any experts, I'd be curious to know. At least, for me, who played with Nintendo products like the Game Boy, handed down from my older brother, for a long time, this transparent design definitely gives a sense of reassurance, or rather, a romantic feeling that takes me back to my childhood.

It's a trackball product bearing the name TrackMan.

A product name that can only be given with a certain level of confidence and ambition. Or is it possible that it was just made during a boom when other companies were manufacturing them?

December 20, 2008 Issue
　Overview of Logitech Cordless TrackMan Wheel

So, the fact that there's an AKIBA HOTLINE article like the one above means that it seems to be a product released at the end of 2008, so the transparent (skeleton) boom had already ended a bit, but perhaps some of the design from the dot-com bubble era, up to the early 2000s, was still being used in parts.

But then I found an article from 2002 as well. So, should I consider its manufacturing period to be from the early to mid-2000s?

It's already faded, but the Logitech logo is still there.

Logicool is now such a large company that it's fair to say they hold a dominant position, but because its name overlapped with 'Logitec' in Japan, it's a brand name that disappeared only in Japan, so the fact that this remains is quite romantic.
I suspect it was a product that was initially imported entirely as a parallel import.

While thinking it might have been a bit of a luxurious mouse for a server, I personally really like the analog combination with the keyboard, which I'll write about later if I feel motivated.

Because the latest isn't always the best, it's good to use quality items for a long time.

That's all for now.