as Golden Tee) to simulate swinging the club. Trackballs have also been regarded as excellent complements to analog joysticks, as pioneered by the Assassin 3D, a trackball released in 1996 with joystick pass-through capability. Later in 1996, Mad Catz released the Panther XL, which was based on the Assassin 3D. This combination provides for two-hand aiming and a high accuracy and consistency replacement for the traditional mouse and keyboard combo generally used on first-person shooter games. Many such games natively support joysticks and analog player movement, like Valve's Half-Life and id Software's Quake series. , one professional eSport player was known for using a trackball. Trackballs are provided as the pointing device in some public internet access terminals. Unlike a mouse, a trackball can easily be built into a console, and cannot be ripped away or easily vandalized. Two examples are the Internet browsing consoles provided in some UK McDonald's outlets, and the BT Broadband Internet public phone boxes. This simplicity and ruggedness also makes them ideal for use in industrial computers. Because trackballs for personal computers are stationary, they may require less space for operation than a mouse, simplifying use in confined or cluttered areas such as a small desk or a rack-mounted terminal. They are generally preferred in laboratory setting for the same reason. Trackballs were often included in laptop computers, but since the late 1990s these have been replaced by touchpads and pointing sticks. Trackballs are still used as separate input devices with standard desktop computers, but this application is also moving to touchpads due to the prevalence of multi touch gesture control in new desktop operating systems. Ergonomics People with a mobility impairment use trackballs as an assistive technology input device. Access to an alternative pointing device has become even more important for them with the dominance of graphically-oriented operating systems. There are many alternative systems to be considered. The control surface of a trackball is easier to manipulate and the buttons can be activated without affecting the pointer position. Trackball users also often state that they are not limited to using the device on a flat desk surface. Trackballs can be used whilst browsing a laptop in bed, or wirelessly from an armchair to a PC playing a movie. They are also useful for computing on boats or other unstable platforms where a rolling deck could produce undesirable input. Trackballs are generally either thumb-operated, with