Other

John T Mondl

Aubert Y Coran

Mark E Esmile

An improved mouse cleaning apparatus having a cleaning ball for temporary insertion into the cavity formed on the underside of the mouse. In one embodiment, the cleaning ball includes a core which is encased within an outer shell of polymeric material such as a foamed rubber compound. This core may be metallic, polymeric, or made of another sufficiently dense material, and is provided to ensure that the cleaning ball is sufficiently heavy to properly roll in response to movement of the mouse across a mouse pad or the like. The core may alternatively be covered with absorbent fibers, which may be synthetic or organic in nature, rather than a polymeric coating. In another embodiment, the cleaning ball is made entirely of a polymeric or elastomeric material having sufficiently high weight and/or density or is sufficiently compressed such that a weighted core is not required. The apparatus further comprises a mouse cleaning pad to provide a suitable planar surface upon which to roll the mouse during cleaning operations. The upper surface of the mouse pad is preferably textured to provide a surface having a relatively high coefficient of friction for the cleaning ball. An improved cleaning method, and various methods for manufacturing mouse cleaning balls are also described.

Mouse cleaning apparatus and method

Optical and digital potentiometers and controllers. In one embodiment of the invention, a paddle slider is maintained within a housing along with a light source and sensor. The amount of light received by the sensor is a function of the position of the slider and, accordingly, a control signal output may be developed corresponding to the mechanical position of the slider. In other embodiments, light sources are caused to impinge on reflective surfaces which reflect the light through a film onto additional reflective surfaces which direct the light to a sensor. The film may be of varying optical density along the length thereof such that the amount of light received corresponds to the position of the slider, or the film may be digitally encoded such that separate light beams received by the sensor will correspond to a digital position of the slider. In another embodiment, a cylindrical digitally encoded film is rotated between a light source and sensor, thereby varying the output of the sensor. In still another embodiment, a pressure bar is maintained upon a slide and transverses a switch pad which is connected to an electronic decoding circuit. As the slide is moved, the output of the switch pad changes as a digital function of the position of the slide.

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Akron, OH, United States of America

John T Mondl