Arcade Trackballs (was: Re: C64 Fuse?)

A little trackball trivia to show you what a chicken-shit company Atari was while they were under the Warner Bros Corporation umbrella. They ( Atari ) contacted a company in New York ( Orbit Instruments ) who held the patent and produced military trackballs used in the tactical display consoles on AEGIS Cruisers and Destroyers. Atari wanted a controller for the arcade version of Missile Command that some asshole kid couldn't break off or destroy ( like they could a joystick ). A deal was struck and Orbit " shared " their proprietary design with the Atari engineers. A long period of time passed and the Missile Command arcade games started showing up in malls around the country with a " patented " trackball controller installed. Orbit called Atari because this was a blatant patent infringement. Atari laughed and said they had 20 corporate lawyers sitting around with nothing to do that would just love to tie this up in the courts until Orbit ran out of money. This is why I think patents are a joke unless you have tons of cash to protect it. And the lawyers lived happily thereafter .... Best regards, Steven