Raspberry Pi celebrates 10 million sold items

Launched in February 2012, the computer, which is now in its third generation, became an instant hit with computer geeks, despite its original purpose as an education device designed to encourage interest in computing among school children.

“At the time, we thought our lifetime volumes might amount to ten thousand units – if we were lucky,” Raspberry Pi creator and CEO Eben Upton recollected in a blog post on Raspberry Pi’s official website.

“There was no expectation that adults would use Raspberry Pi, no expectation of commercial success, and certainly no expectation that four years later we would be manufacturing tens of thousands of units a day in the UK, and exporting Raspberry Pi all over the world.”

With the newest Raspberry Pi 3 selling for £30, the device is the bestselling UK-made computer ever by a massive margin. It runs a Linux-based operating system Raspbian that provides a user-friendly coding interface. Thousands of enthusiasts from around the world have been using the computer board to build homemade robots and other quirky gadgets.

To celebrate the milestone, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has launched an official Raspberry Pi starter kit – a set of accessories to get the computer going. Until today, it was up to the users to purchase or otherwise acquire the peripherals needed to use a Raspberry Pi. The starter kit includes a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, an  8GB NOOBS SD card, official case, official 2.5A multi-region power supply, a 1m HDMI cable, optical mouse and a keyboard with high-quality scissor-switch action.

Raspberry Pi 3, 50 per cent faster than the previous Raspberry Pi 2, was unveiled in February this year. The previous generations are still available.

A modification of the tiny computer dubbed the Astro Pi travelled to the International Space Station with British astronaut Tim Peake last year. Fitted with extra sensors, the computer board was used to run experiments designed by British students and school children.