nanotube Pascaline - making progress

Between looking around for employment opportunities (ahem ahem) I have had some time to get back to work on my nanotube calculator ambitions. I am still working on developing techniques to build the little systems I know I'll need to build anything resembling a functional computer. The picture is another experiment to demonstrate how to connect three (or more) nanotube shafts of different diameters. This will be extremely valuable for efficiently transferring torques and changing speeds. As usual the small gear is the drive gear, but the heart of the experiment is the thickish looking ring of atoms extending out from the large tube. This is the start of, what I hope will be, a clutch mechanism. The final design should allow me to connect nanotubes of different diameters and start and stop their rotation using a linear motor jig. However, just like with the rotary motor jig, the linear motor jig can not be programmed for a certain amount of travel per direction, at least I don't think it can. I am thinking I may have to add that feature (as I look dishearteningly at the programming textbooks on my shelf). Well, let's just say someone needs to add stepper functionality to the jigs.

But some might ask: "Tom, if this was a real nanotube computer, who would you get to pull the levers to engage it all, Maxwell's demon?"

I bet we would have a good chuckle at their witticism. After everyone had composed themselves I would casually throw out "DNA springs"; game-set-match.

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