Comment by kens

The Soviet Globus is similar in some ways, but also has some major differences. As you mentioned, the ball shows the spacecraft's position over the earth, rather than showing the spacecraft's orientation in space, so the ball looks like a globe with landmasses and everything. The ball rotates along two axes, not three. Moreover, the Globus doesn't have any external inputs; it rotates the ball according to a preset track, regardless of where you actually are.

My three articles on the Globus had the following HN discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34468212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35311300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35038710