Konrad Zuse's Logic Gates

Visiting a computer history museum, I recently saw a very nice alternative to rod logic for creating mechanical logic gates. The idea was by Konrad Zuse, the creator of the Z1 mechanical computer.

Zuse's logic gates work like shown in this example (image taken from this URL, from where you can get the explanation of how it works):

In order to understand what I explain next, you should read this page first. The main difference with rod logic is that rods (here called "sheets") do not push or lock each other. Instead, there is a small circular piece (a vertical rod) that is pushed by each of the sheets, and which transfers the force from one sheet to another. The main advantage of this is that all the input sheets can always move freely, and never get locked (as happens with rod logic). Thus, a Zuse-style logic gate can always be reset, and the input sheets can be reset in any order, no matter their state.

Here's a recreation of the same gate you can see above, but built with lego pieces:

It has the three "sheets", the case, and the vertical rod. I had to add a wheel to the top and bottom of the central vertical rod to prevent it from tilting. You can see how it works in the following video:

I also tested a slightly more complex NAND gate, which can be seen below:

The following video shows how it works:

I guess my next step is to attempt to create again a finite state machine, but this time using Konrad Zuse's logic gates rather than rod-logic gates. Let's see if it's as easy as it seems to me right now :). [and you can find my new FSM here] [you can also find a semi-automated version of these gates here]