Raspberry Pi delay caused by jack mix-up

The first run of Raspberry Pis has been delayed by a manufacturing fault, the foundation behind the cheap educational computers has said.

The delay was due to a mix-up between different types of jacks. The Raspberry Pi, ordering for which opened up at the end of February, needs jacks with integrated magnetics for the computer's Ethernet connectivity, and the factory soldered in non-magnetic jacks by mistake.

"No magnetics means no network connection," the Raspberry Pi Foundation's Liz Upton wrote in a blog post on Thursday. "We've known about this for four days now, but we haven't been able to tell you about it because it meant we had to do some further tests to make sure that nothing else was affected."

Upton explained that the problem was "very minor" and easily fixed by replacing the jacks. "The factory is nearly done working on replacing them on the first set of boards," she said, adding that the first batch "should still go out to customers as we were expecting".

However, the timing of further batches may also be affected, as all the jacks the foundation had in stock turned out to be the wrong ones. The hunt is now on for magnetic replacements.

"We're having to start again and move through the negotiating/ordering/delivery cycle as fast as we can," Upton wrote. "Our partners at Element 14/Premier Farnell and RS Components are working hard to help us cater for this, and to expedite supply of the Raspberry Pi."

The first Raspberry Pi retails at around £22 and is intended for educational use, to get children interested in programming. However, the device has garnered a huge amount of interest among a range of enthusiasts, and the first batch sold out within minutes of availability — with demand bringing down the online retailers' websites soon after.