the latest and most versatile version of the RPi 3 Model B costs € 30 for the online shop.

Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/7249-raspberry-pi-kortteja-myyty-jo-10-miljoonaa

Less than four years ago, a tiny credit-card-size computer changed the world for students, gadget makers, industry, even space. The Raspberry Pi showed up in February 2012 with modest expectations and a low price of $25. This little computer from the United Kingdom soon became much more than its founder expected. That Cambridge professor and Raspberry Pi founder — Eben Upton

Upton didn’t start out with ambitious dreams for his tiny computer. He just wanted to put something inexpensive — yet useful — in the hands of students. “We were expecting to sell maybe 10,000 units lifetime, and that was in our wildest dreams,”

Raspberry Pi has spread far beyond its original aim as a tool for students.

Less than four years ago, a tiny credit-card-size computer changed the world for students, gadget makers, industry, even space. The Raspberry Pi showed up in February 2012 with modest expectations and a low price of $25. This little computer from the United Kingdom soon became much more than its founder expected.

“We were expecting to sell maybe 10,000 units lifetime, and that was in our wildest dreams,”

Raspberry Pi caught on quickly — then explored. Now in its fourth iteration in this short history, the modest board has sold more than 10 million units. For the Raspberry Pi Foundation, those resources have supported a deeper dive in the hardware and software. “The unexpected interest in Raspberry Pi, both in terms of sheer numbers and in terms of industrial use, provided us with the financial resources to develop the hardware platform — first the Model B+, and then Raspberry Pi 2 and 3 — while also helping us develop the software environment,”

Raspberry Pi has spread far beyond its original aim as a tool for students. These days there are few places that are not making some use of the small platform. “The use of Raspberry Pi in industrial contexts in general — such as factory automation — has been surprising,” said Upton. “On the hobbyist side, we’ve seen everything from people putting them under weather balloons and sending them to the edge of space to people building art installations.”

“We never imagined that we’d get to send two units to the International Space Station, but we did when UK ESA astronaut Tim Peake took it into space last year,”

The Raspberry Pi Foundation founder Eben Upton has announced that their ten millionth eponymous single-board computer has been sold since their launch back in February 2012. It’s an impressive achievement

They passed the Sinclair ZX Spectrum’s British record of 5m computers sold back in February 2015, leaving behind the Pi’s BBC Micro spiritual ancestor on 1.5m sold long before that.

Critics of the Pi will point out that its various versions have rarely been the most powerful small single board computer on the market, or even at times the cheapest. They will also point to the closed-source nature of the Broadcom binary blob that underpins Pi operating systems, and even the sometimes unpredictable nature of the Pi Foundation with respect to its community, product availability and launches. But given that the Pi Foundation’s focus is not on our side of the community but on using the boards as a tool to introduce young people to computing, it’s fair to say that they’ve done a pretty good job of ensuring that a youngster can now get their hands on a useful and easily programmable computer much more easily than at any time in the past.

It’s likely that Raspberry Pi sales will continue to climb, and in years to come we’ll no doubt be reporting on fresh milestones on ever more powerful revisions of their product. But it’s also likely that their competition will up their software game and their position in the hearts and minds of single board computer users might be usurped by a better offering. If this increased competition in the single board computer market delivers better boards with more for the hardware developer community, then we’re all for it.

Raspberry Pi has sold over 10 million units and has announced today a new Raspberry Pi Starter Kit to celebrate its achievements.

Founder of the Raspberry Pi foundation and CEO of its trading arm, Eben Upton, said the original goal was to create a device that would attract more students to study Computer Science at the University of Cambridge.

“By putting cheap, programmable computers in the hands of the right young people, we hoped that we might revive some of the sense of excitement about computing that we had back in the 1980s with our Sinclair Spectrums, BBC Micros and Commodore 64s,” Upton wrote in Raspberry Pi’s blog.

The team estimated that 10,000 units would be sold in their lifetime to students, but were surprised when the pocket-sized computers were a hit amongst adults as well.