A rotary encoder includes a housing and a shaft, which has an axis. The engine cover puller may reduce or eliminate the deformation of an engine cover during its removal and allows for its potential reuse. The hydrophobic component may be a polydimethylsiloxane having a terminal silanol group. The input selection circuit selects a predetermined reference voltage for driving the liquid crystals from a plurality of reference voltages provided from an input voltage generation circuit or a plurality of reference voltages generated within the input selection circuit based on an input signal representative of gray-scale data and the polarity control signal. Impedances associated with sampling semiconductor switches are maintained substantially constant during sample states, at least in part, by compensating for encountered input signal variations in order to reduce or minimize signal distortion associated with sampled signals that pass through the sampling switch. Data related to character attributes are stored in a database.