From a distance the Tinkertoy computer resembles a childhood fantasy gone wild or, as one of the group members remarked, a spool-and-stick version of the 'space slab' from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Unlike the alien monolith, the computer plays a mean game of tic-tac-toe. A Tinkertoy framework called the read head clicks and clacks its way down the from the the monolith. At some point the clicking mysteriously stops; a 'core piece' within the framework spins and then with a satisfying 'kathunk' indirectly kicks an 'output duck, ' a bird-shaped construction. The output duck swings down from its perch as that its beak points at a number--which identifies the computer's next move in a game of tic-tac-toe.