>> Imagine how hard you'd have to push if you connected together a handful 
>> of these blocks!
>
> Well, that's just it. The entire assembly is passive, whereas normally 
> logic gates have their output power derived from a source independent to 
> the input. (Especially buffers - that's essentially their entire point!)
>
> It's not particularly easy to see how you'd do this with reciprocating 
> mechanical signals; if you were using continuous rotational motion, it 
> would be clearer that amplification is possible. (Although it's still not 
> obvious what the best way to achieve it is...)

You'd have an big drive shaft going down the middle powered by a huge motor 
rotating at a constant speed.  Whenever a logic gate needs to output a logic 
1, it would just connect its output shaft to the big shaft.  Would make for 
interesting circuit layouts :-)

With linear motion you could have a big "activate" rod that you push with a 
big force to "run" the circuit.  You set up your inputs by either connecting 
them to this rod or not, and each logic gate could be arranged to either 
connect or disconnect its output to the core activate rod (they could spring 
back to "0" if not connected).  I haven't thought this through yet if it 
would actually work or not with more complex circuits!

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