Trackball differences ?

[Frogger]

Newbie here to this forum & have a question.

I plan on doing a trackball-mouse hack in order to get a USB connection. This is where the output of the TB optical sensors are jumpered to the mouse’s circuit board as shown here.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,16802.0.html

I have seen several of these mods on the Internet & it does not seem to matter what brand of trackball is used. Yet it looks like different makes of trackballs have different optical circuit boards.

When searching to find out if my TB is hackable I saw comments on various websites that the different brands of TBs are pretty much swappable. IOW Brand A can be used as a direct replacement for Brand B. That would mean their output signals must be pretty much the same.

On my old WICO made for the Atari 800 TB its optical boards have only 2 components - the optical transmitter/receiver and a resistor. Other boards have, besides the optical parts, an integrated circuit & several surface mount devices.

This is basically a curiosity question -
If all or most TBs output compatible signals, why do some use or need several parts on the optical boards yet some like WICO have just one (in addition to the optical parts)? Or does that mean there really is a difference between makes?

[BobA]

See ultimarc's page for lots of trackball connection info.   I hacked a wico tb and the model I have used a sensor, ic and resistors but some models apparently have only the sensor and a resistor.

Link:    http://www.ultimarc.com/optipac3.html

[Frogger]

Thanks for the reply.

I've seen that ultimarc page & also this one which shows an IC and a dozen surface mount devices.
http://na.suzohapp.com/amusement_products/trackballs/A052-1011-00

It appears my WICO trackball will work with the mouse hack, & I don't plan on re-engineering any circuits. I was just wondering what the advantages are of using something like the "Red Board" vs the much simpler WICO board.

Right now I'm trying to dig up an old style ball mouse. Micro Center & Fry's don't have them so it looks like an ebay purchase.