That reminds me of a case I had with a physically impaired customer. He's an elderly man lifelong tied in his electric wheelchair. His best working limb is his right foot which he uses for driving his chair and also trackballing his computer. I first met him almost a decade ago. He had a worn out CH DT225 trackball, serial port version which had served him about twenty years! It's a sturdy thing, with 3 mm thick stainless steel rods beneath the ball as axis. The poles had worn to a sandglass shape, causing jams and hops as he tried to type on the virtual keyboard, writing in his blog. The left button spring had also failed. Finally he gave up with the CH, trying to find a substitute cheap enough for his nominal pension. We also looked for aid equipment, but their pricing was stellar! Several moderately priced (below €100) examples were bought, but they didn't last more than half a year each before the ball stuck. Talk about bad design... Finally I thought I'd try to find out if CH could provide spare parts for the old (t)rusty. After some searching I found an email address to CH support, which led me to connection with the Scandinavian CH dealer in Sweden. Lo and behold, he sent me a brand new USB version totally free of charge, saying in his e-mail that such a loyal customer has to be rewarded! As a bonus the day I installed the new trackball was the customer's birthday.
