Ship of Theseus
Rebuilding a computer, one component at a time.
Every computer I have used runs on parts I did not make and only partly understand. This is an experiment in replacing them one at a time, from the assembler upwards, with parts I build myself, and in keeping an honest record of what changes, what breaks and what I learn along the way.
Plate I
The ship as it stands, 10 October 2026. Each plank is one component of the original system, drawn with an area proportional to its weight. Point at a plank to name it.
Baseline inventory in progress The original system has been divided into 33 components and weighted, but the inventory is still a draft. Nothing is measured until it is frozen.
- Original
- In development
- Under validation
- Rebuilt
- User environment 17%
- Toolchain 26%
- Runtime libraries 14%
- Devices and files 15%
- Kernel 22%
- Boot 6%
- Keel blocks hardware and firmware, outside the baseline
The question
If I replace every component of a computer, one at a time, at what point does it become an entirely new system?
…they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.
Here the planks are an assembler, a linker, a shell, a memory manager. This site does not settle the question. It keeps the record you would need to argue about it: what was there, what replaced it, when, and with what evidence.
The system
Thirty-odd parts in four layers, each resting on an interface where parts can be exchanged.
Programs
Toolchain
User environment
Rests on library interfaces (the Rust standard library and the C calling convention)
Libraries
Rests on the Linux system-call interface on x86-64
Kernel space
Kernel
Rests on the boot hand-off and the machine's devices
Start-up
Rests on UEFI firmware and the x86-64 instruction set
Latest replacement
No component has been replaced yet. When one is, it will appear here with what it replaced, the evidence that it works, and how it moved the measurement.
From the journal
The journal begins with the first entry.