Abstract: 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.

Abstract: 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.