THE MILESTONES : From ST-T1024 Spec. to Product — Each Step with a Time, a Cost, and a Proof

The spec is complete. The product does not exist. The distance between them is oftendescribed as "years" — a figure that conflates three unrelated barriers. This paper separates them. The technical barrier is weeks. An embedded engineer with a $12 board and theMicrocontroller Implementation Guide can have the full pipeline running on real hardwarethis quarter. The code exists. The traps are documented. The board costs less than lunch.The institutional barrier is months. A named signing authority, certified sources, and attested tile content. This is not engineering. It is staffing and political will. The certification barrier is years — and it begins after the first deployment, not before. This paper states the milestones, each with a time, a cost, and a proof. It names what eachmilestone does not produce. It separates the barriers so that the fast one is not held hostage by the slow ones. And it states, in the register of an engineering document, where the first mover actually is: not at the eighteen-month mark. At the two-week mark. The spec. is done. The first milestone is a weekend.