# Silicon Seed: implementation roadmap ## From zero budget to full implementation *uzinaduzina, October 2026, draft* --- ## Two rules that hold for every stage 1. **Every stage must be worth doing even if the next one never comes.** No stage depends on future money to make sense. If the project stops at stage 0, what exists is still a complete, small, working seed. 2. **The chain starts as early as possible.** The thousand-year count begins with the first germination, however small. A modest first year is better than a perfect first year five years later. Year 1 is the first equinox we can reach. The dates below assume the **March equinox** is chosen. If it is September, every ritual shifts by six months. --- ## Overview | Stage | Name | Budget (order of magnitude) | Duration | What exists at the end | |---|---|---|---|---| | **0** | Kitchen-table seed | €0 | Oct 2026 – Mar 2027 | A simulated machine, NAND gates from salvaged parts, test tablets, the first germination | | **1** | Workbench seed | €1–5k | Mar 2027 – Mar 2028 | A working 8-bit machine on breadboards, a first sealed jar, a woven program | | **2** | Pilot | €75–120k | 24 months | A real sealed specimen, a ceramic genome, two deposit sites | | **3** | The ritual becomes an institution | €10–20k per year | Years 3–10 | A yearly cycle with keepers and a charter; the first decade layer | | **4** | The network | Grows with the number of sites | Years 5–20 | Three to five sites in several countries, exchanging their numbers | | **5** | The full orchard | Unbounded | Years 20–50 and beyond | Seven sites, the open seeds, an off-Earth copy, handover to the next generations | --- ## Stage 0. Kitchen-table seed (€0) **October 2026 – March 2027** The goal is a **minimum viable seed**: the smallest thing that already contains all three layers (genome, specimen, germination), made only from free tools, salvaged materials and volunteer time. ### Steps **Conceptual** 1. Draw the **dependency graph** v0 by hand or in free graph software: every idea from "count on your fingers" to "write a program", each pointing only to ideas before it. 2. Write the **one-page genome**: the whole project on a single sheet that maps everything else. 3. Define the **zero reader**: we assume only that they see, count and have hands. **Mathematical** 4. Write the 12-step ladder on paper, starting with steps 1, 5 and 8 (counting, binary, NAND), each on the **four levels** (hand, image, sign, idea), each with its proof of mastery. **Technical** 5. Write the **instruction set** on paper: 8-bit, around 16 instructions, chosen to be explainable. 6. Build the whole machine in a **free logic simulator**. It costs nothing and can be complete. *Done (October 2026): Seed-8, 609 NAND gates, in a simulator of our own.* 7. Write the **conformance program** in the simulator and define how it produces **the number of the year**. *Done: year 1 (2027) gives 166, 226.* 8. Build the **NAND gate in salvaged materials**: - mechanical: wood, cardboard and marbles; - relays: taken from old appliances or scrapped cars; - transistors: desoldered from electronic waste. E-waste becomes a quarry. This is also a statement: the parts for a computer are already lying around, waiting for someone who knows the craft. **Craft** 9. **Clay test tablets**: shape, size and inscription methods. Ask a local potter to put them in a kiln run they are already firing. 10. **A woven memory test**: a few bits woven through ferrite rings salvaged from old cables. 11. **Film every gesture** with a phone and describe it, as intangible heritage documentation. **Philosophical** 12. Complete the manifesto with the **list of refusals** and write **charter v0**: what the seed is, who it belongs to (no one), how roles rotate. **Public** 13. Open a public repository under CC0 for everything. Invite volunteers through a local makerspace, a library and the uzinaduzina network. ### The first germination: around 20 March 2027 At the March 2027 equinox, hold **Germination Zero**. A small cohort (a child, a teenager, an elder, and anyone who wants to come) builds the NAND gate from the test tablets alone, in at least one material, and runs whatever part of the conformance program the gates can already check. The result is **the first number of the year**, engraved on a clay tablet. It will be small and imperfect. It will also be **year 1** of a thousand. ### Gate to stage 1 - the machine runs the conformance program in simulation; - the NAND gate works in at least three materials; - ten test tablets exist; - one stranger test has been done and documented; - Germination Zero has happened and the first number is engraved. --- ## Stage 1. Workbench seed (€1–5k) **March 2027 – March 2028** The goal is to move from simulation to a **real, physical, working machine**, and to start the first ageing experiment, however crude. ### Steps 1. **Build the full 8-bit machine on breadboards** from common logic chips (the integrated-circuit level). This costs a few hundred euros. 2. **Build a reduced relay version** (for example 4-bit) of the same architecture, at least up to the adder and one register. 3. **Run the conformance program on both** and check that the numbers match. This is the first proof that two bodies are one machine. 4. **Weave the founding program** in core rope, at least the boot sequence (steps 0 to 4: counting, primes, the mirror, arithmetic, invitation). 5. **The first sealed specimen, the honest poor version**: a small transistor-level board in a glass jar with desiccant, sealed with wax or resin. It is not hermetic and we say so, but it starts the ageing record. 6. **Fire a proper batch of tablets** for the first 50 concepts on the four levels. Laser-engrave a first steel test plate at a fablab. 7. **Three or four stranger-test workshops** in a school, a library and a village. Correct the genome from every failure. 8. **A first lens-making test**: can a glass bead melted in a flame read the smallest text on the tablets? ### The second germination: March 2028 The cohort builds part of the machine from the genome, runs the conformance program and engraves **the number of year 2**. The jar from year 1 is woken and tested. ### Gate to stage 2 - a working physical machine at two technological levels, with matching numbers; - a woven boot program that runs; - at least 50 concepts in fired ceramic; - two consecutive yearly germinations held and documented; - a public record of every genome correction. --- ## Stage 2. Pilot (€75–120k) **24 months, starting whenever funding arrives** This is the pilot described in the main project document (section 8). By this point it is no longer a leap of faith: it starts with **two years of numbers already engraved** and a working machine. ### Steps 1. **A professional sleeping specimen**: hermetic capsule with argon, desiccant and oxygen absorber, **sealed terminals and a window**, and **witness samples** of every component type. Done with a conservation or materials laboratory. 2. **Woven working memory** in magnetic core, so the specimen wakes up remembering. 3. **The mechanical body**: at least NAND gates and an adder in wood and metal, running a piece of the conformance program at one step per second. 4. **Genome v1 in ceramic and steel**: the core path from counting to a working machine, on four levels and three registers, in at least Romanian and English. 5. **Deposit at two sites**, one of them institutional (a library or archive), with a public ceremony. 6. **Charter v1**, with the first keepers of the memory boards (3 of 5 needed to start the specimen). ### Gate to stage 3 - a properly sealed specimen that can be tested without opening; - genome v1 deposited in two places; - a machine that runs in three bodies (mechanical, relay, chips) with the same number; - the first keepers named and the charter public. --- ## Stage 3. The ritual becomes an institution (€10–20k per year) **Years 3–10** The goal is that the project **no longer depends on its founders' energy**. The ritual runs every year at a recurring, modest cost. ### Steps, every year 1. The **equinox germination**: ten gardeners, one week, the genome alone, the number of the year. 2. Every sleeping specimen is **woken through its terminals** and read through its window. 3. **Openings on the doubling ladder**: the specimen sealed in stage 1 is opened at ages 1, 2, 4 and 8. 4. The **ring of the year** is written; the **interpreters** renew the language layer. 5. Roles **rotate**: new keepers, a new curator of the year. ### Milestones in this stage - **Year 5**: the first gardeners from year 1 return as teachers. - **Year 10**: the first **layer of the decade** is condensed into ceramic; the genome approaches its full core of around 1,000 tablets; the **open seed** (a large, public, mechanical machine that visitors can run) exists at the first site. - The **local custom** takes shape: a counting rhyme, a feast on the equinox night, a small object every child takes home. ### Gate to stage 4 - ten consecutive numbers of the year; - the ritual has run at least twice without the founders leading it; - a first ageing curve published from the doubling-ladder openings. --- ## Stage 4. The network **Years 5–20, overlapping with stage 3** The goal is to stop being a single point of failure. **Losing one site becomes a wound, not a death.** ### Steps 1. Add sites one at a time, in other countries and of other kinds: a national library, a university, a museum, a village kept by its community. **Three sites, then five.** 2. Every genome gets the **map** of all sites. 3. Sites **exchange their numbers of the year** by every available channel. Matching numbers mean the seed germinated everywhere. 4. **The journey**: each year one gardener from every site travels to another for the next germination, in the manner of the journeyman's tour. 5. The **two seeds can talk**: link machines from different sites by wire, light and sound, using only the protocols on the tablets. 6. The **library layer**: start writing the yearly rings, the decade layers and a history of computing told through its people into denser media (engraved nickel, then quartz glass), with the decoding key in ceramic. 7. **The seed writes the seed**: build the clay-engraving stylus as the machine's output device, so a working machine can write its own genome tablets for a potter to fire. ### Gate to stage 5 - five active sites in at least three countries; - matching numbers across sites for several consecutive years; - at least one genome tablet written by the machine itself and fired. --- ## Stage 5. The full orchard **Years 20–50 and beyond** This is the ideal version described in "Silicon Seed: the ideal version". ### Steps 1. **Seven sites**, seven kinds of shelter: a salt mine, a national library, a monastery, a university, a museum, a village and a copy off Earth. 2. **An off-Earth micro-copy** of the genome, through a partner already sending payloads to the Moon. 3. **Four bodies at every site**, mechanical through chips, all giving the same number. 4. **The full genome** in three materials, with a lens in every box and instructions for making one from a flame. 5. **Languages**: the six official UN languages, Romanian, and the language of every host site, renewed every year. ### The long milestones | Year | Milestone | |---|---| | **25** | Children from the first cohorts return as teachers and keepers. | | **50** | A gardener from the first cohort becomes a keeper. The founders are no longer needed. | | **100** | The genome is re-engraved on fresh material, in the same form. A century of ageing data is published. | | **250** | The technological levels are re-evaluated: has a level appeared or disappeared? | | **500** | The text layer has changed beyond recognition; the image and number layers carry the meaning. | | **1000** | A cohort with no living link to the founders rebuilds the machine from the genome and computes the number of the year. | --- ## The next five things to do, starting tomorrow 1. Draw the one-page genome. 2. Try Seed-8 in the browser and print its eight jobs on one page. 3. Find one dead appliance with a relay in it. 4. Ask a potter whether ten small tablets can ride along in their next kiln run. 5. Put the March 2027 equinox in the calendar as **Germination Zero, year 1**.