Today's world is AMD64, Armv7, and soon Aarch64. Everything else is dead, Jim.

[Dirk Broer]

Seven years ago some redditor wrote

"Today's world is AMD64, Armv7, and soon Aarch64. Everything else is dead, Jim. No-one is investing enough money and brain power in the other architectures. Only a few people actually know about the rest of the ecosystem (MIPS, Power 8...), and no-one gives a shit anyway."

It has now come to the point that even armv7 is on the way out, too: No big Linux distro is bringing out new 32-bit versions of their distro version(s), Apple OS 10 Catalina and IOS 11 are Apple's first 64-bit only OS versions and Android 12 is the first Android version without 32-bit support. But are things really as bleak as the instruction set (AMD64, Armv7) and CPU-architecture (Aarch64) juggling redditor claims?

If we stick to our beloved BOINC, a BOINC-platform is defined by the combination of hardware (CPU) and Software (OS) and in truth there were more active platforms some 20 years ago than there are today. But that doesn't mean they are dead, Jim.

Back when Seti@Home was the most popular distributed computing project there was a handy add-on, SetiSpy by the late Roelof Engelbrecht, that let you see the relative strength of you CPU under Windows. Linux users might still remember Roberto Virga's KSetiSpy clone of it.
mainscreen.gifAantekening 2020-05-19 122213.jpgAantekening 2020-05-19 122213a.JPG
As you can see there are scores for some early 64-bit heavies such as Alpha and Itanium CPUs, but there are also scores for old 32-bit 80386 and 80486 CPUs. You might even argue that already by those old figures the future was definitely 64-bit, but you might also wonder where those phenomenally good DEC Alpha CPUs went, or those SUN Ultra SPARCs.

What you do not yet see in the old tables are ARM CPUs, let alone RISC-V ones (BTW, RISC-V is one of the few consumer CPU Architectures that is already prepared for 128-bit computing). I specifically write 'consumer CPU', because there are very capable enterprise server CPUs, that are not affected by the gloomy reddit forecast.

Today's BOINC platforms cater mainly for the x86-64 architecture/AMD64 instruction set, running Windows, Linux and, if you're lucky, Apple OSX, FreeBSD or even OpenBSD.

BOINC-platform-wise:

windows_x86_64	Microsoft Windows running on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU
x86_64-pc-linux-gnu	Linux running on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU
x86_64-apple-darwin	Mac OS 10.5+ running on an Intel 64-bit CPU
x86_64-android-linux-gnu	Android running on AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU
x86_64-pc-freebsd	FreeBSD on Intel-compatible 64-bit
x86_64-pc-openbsd	OpenBSD on Intel-compatible 64-bit

Some projects also cater form the ARM architecture/ARMv8a instruction set, running Linux or Android.

aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu	Linux running on ARM 64-bit armv8a
arm64-apple-darwin	Mac OS running on ARM 64-bit armv8a
aarch64-android-linux-gnu	Android running on ARM 64-bit armv8a
mips64-android-linux-gnu	Android running on MIPS 64-bit (Big Endian)
mips64el-android-linux-gnu	Android running on MIPS 64-bit (Little Endian)

N.B.: There is Windows for ARM, just as there is Android for x86-64, but the projects supporting it have still to be found, or are inactive (Seti@Home for Android/x86-64).

Theoretically possible BOINC-platforms could include:

aarch64-unknown-freebsd	FreeBSD running on ARM 64-bit armv8a
x86_64-pc-haiku	Haiku on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU
power64-ibm-aix	AIX v7+ running on IBM Power7+
mips64el-linux-gnu	Linux running on MIPS 64-bit (Little Endian)
riscv64-linux-gnu	Linux running on RISC-V 64-bit
loongarch-linux-gnu	Linux running on Loongson 64-bit (Little Endian)
alpha-Sunway-linux-gnu	Linux running on Sunway SW26010

Loongson builds forth on the MIPS64 ISA, Sunway does so on the Alpha ISA.

To paraphrase the redditor "Today's world is AMD64, Aarch64, and soon RISC-V. Everything else is dead, Jim." But we know now why Jim doesn't listen...
To paraphrase the next video clip "There's Loongsons on the starboard bow"...

[Dirk Broer]

It is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA), and some claim the '-V' suffix means that it is the fifth. The fifth? The name RISC-V would then have been chosen to represent the fifth major RISC ISA design from UC Berkeley (RISC-I, RISC-II, SOAR, and SPUR being the first four). Others claim that the '-V' suffix means 'Vector', because they needed a 64-bit ISA with enough opcode space for vector processor ISA design exploration, so "risc-vee" for vector.

The first halfway capable SBC with a RISC-V SOC -the StarFive's VisionFive 2- has been launched recently, and the first serious reviews shows that despite the enthusiasm the the reviewers show to the board and its documentation, there is still a long way to go before it can be as successful as the Raspberry Pi.
Christopher Barnatt showing the VisionFive 2: RISC-V Quad Core Low Cost SBC
Jeff Geerling - RISC-V Business: Testing StarFive's VisionFive 2 SBC
Armbian for the VisionFive 2

[Nflight]

Photonic computers will be the new ultimate cruncher. They have been kept in the dark for way too long. Their time is ripe for exposure, hang on to your boot straps as they are FAST.

[Dirk Broer]

Photonic computers will be the new ultimate cruncher. They have been kept in the dark for way too long. Their time is ripe for exposure, hang on to your boot straps as they are FAST.

I believe photonic chips, powering quantum computers will be the future -in the future. RISC-V is right next door, ready to crunch BOINC in 2024, I hope. Photonic Quantum computers may be available in another 10 or 20 years at soonest.

The only thing standing in the way for RISC-V at the moment, BOINC-wise, is a project that offers an application for this new platform (BOINC platform is a mix of CPU architecture and OS). There is a RISC-V SBC, Armbian offers an OS for that board.
That's not to say that you have things running in a few moments: