Raspberry Pi waiting list hits 250,000
In a sign of the popularity of Raspberry Pi, a quarter of a million people are on just one distributor's waiting list to buy the cheap Linux computer.
RS Components has 250,000 potential customers lined up for the ARM-based computer, the BBC said on Tuesday. Since receiving its first shipment last week, the Corby-based electronics distributor has sent out 700 of the devices, which cost less than £30.
"RS introduces over 70,000 products every year to its technology range," Glenn Jarrett, head of electronics marketing at the company, told BBC Look East. "We've never had this level of interest for a product ever before."
The Cambridge-developed Raspberry Pi, which is manufactured in China, is designed to provide a cheap resource for getting children interested in programming. Despite this, it has picked up a huge number of fans among computing hobbyists, leading to delays while the device was certified for general use.
Raspberry Pi unboxing videos and images have started to pop up on the foundation's forum, posted by those lucky enough to have got a computer in the first wave of shipments. There are a few on YouTube, as in this example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqDXF4_j70Q