Ontology of Architectural Regimes in Computing: Growth Fronts, Closure, and Architectural Disposal Beyond Evolutionary Narratives

This paper develops an architectural ontology of computing that rejects evolutionary accounts of technological change. Technical objects do not evolve; rather, they are created, stabilized, reproduced, and disposed under externally governed architectural regimes. An architectural regime is defined as a mode of structural unity maintained through specific invariants and integration mechanisms. The paper introduces three regime operators—growth fronts, closure points, and odd remainders—and applies them to the history of computing. On this basis, computing history is reconstructed as a sequence of discontinuous regime transitions rather than as continuous technological progress. Architectural disposal is formalized as an ontological event marking the loss of regime unity, distinct from market obsolescence or performance decline. By fixing architecture as ontologically prior to dynamics and observation, the framework distinguishes architectural existence from dynamic persistence and replacement from development. The result is a diagnostic, non-futurist account of computing architecture that clarifies why certain structural tensions persist and why architectural change proceeds through regime replacement rather than evolution.