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Introduction

The Raspberry Pi is a type of circuit board sold by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in the UK.

The Raspberry Pi was first conceived in 2006 by Eben Upton, a computer scientist at the University of Cambridge before working for prestigious companies, like Broadcom, Intel and IBM, with the creation of the first prototypes inspired from the BBC Micro from Acorn computers he used at school.

In 2009, Eben Upton created the Raspberry Pi Foundation to structure the Raspberry Pi development. It’s a registered educational charity foundation based in the UK. He made up his mind that the goal of the Raspberry Pi will be to help young students learn programming basics at low cost.

It wasn’t until 2012 that the team created a product that satisfied all their requirements and was ready for distribution.

Upton and his colleagues were concerned about the declining number of students studying computer science in the UK. They believed that this was due in part to the high cost of computers and the lack of affordable educational resources.

The computer scientists working on the project with Eben Upton was Rob Mullins, Jack Lang and Alan Mycroft.

Upton and his team set out to design a low-cost computer that could be used to teach students about computer science. They wanted the computer to be small, lightweight, and easy to use. They also wanted it to be open source, so that anyone could contribute to its development.

Why is it called Raspberry Pi?

At the time of Raspberry Pi’s inception, it was a very popular trend for computer manufacturers to name their products and devices after fruit. Apple is arguably the most famous example of this naming convention, but other companies like Blackberry followed suit. Raspberry Pi bought into this trend, naming their computer after the humble but sweet berry. It’s also supposedly a reference to the common expression ‘blowing a raspberry’.

The "Pi" refers to the RPi’s programming language, Python. Of course, it’s also a bit of a nod to the mathematical concept of π (pi).

The first Raspberry Pi was released in February 2012. It was an instant success, selling over one million units in its first year. The Raspberry Pi has been praised for its affordability, versatility, and ease of use. It has been used in a wide variety of applications, including education, hobbyist projects, and commercial products.

The Raspberry Pi has also had a significant impact on the computer industry. It has helped to popularize the single-board computer (SBC) market and has inspired the development of other SBCs, such as the Arduino and the BeagleBone. The Raspberry Pi has also helped to promote open source software and has made it easier for people to learn about programming and electronics.

Timeline of the Raspberry Pi

Here is a timeline of some of the key milestones in the history of the Raspberry Pi:

  • 2006 – Early work on the Raspberry Pi began at Cambridge University by Eben Upton, Rob Mullins, Jack Lang and Alan Mycroft
  • August 2011 – (50 alpha boards are manufactured)[https://web.archive.org/web/20121102112319/https://www.geek.com/articles/chips/raspberry-pi-25-pc-goes-into-alpha-production-20110728/]
  • 2009 – Creation of the Raspberry Pi Foundation
  • January 2012 – During the first week of the year, the first 10 boards were put up for auction on eBay
  • 29 February 2012 – The first commercial release of the Raspberry Pi
  • 5 September 2012 – The Foundation announced a second revision of the Raspberry Pi Model B
  • 6 September 2012 – It was announced that Raspberry Pi units would now be manufactured in the UK (they were previously manufactured in China) at Sony’s manufacturing facility in Wales
  • 15 October 2012 – It is announced that new Raspberry Pi Model Bs are to be fitted with 512 MB instead of 256 MB RAM
  • 4 February 2013 – Release of the Raspberry Pi A
  • 2013: The Raspberry Pi Foundation is established.
  • 2014: The Raspberry Pi 2 is released
  • July 2014 – The Raspberry Pi Model B+ was announced
  • November 2014 – The Raspberry Pi Model A+ was announced
  • November 2015 – The Raspberry Pi Zero is launched (the smallest and cheapest yet, at 65 mm × 30 mm, and US$5)
  • February 2016 – The Raspberry Pi 3 is released
  • 8 September 2016 – (Raspberry Pi has sold 10 million units)[https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37305200]
  • 16 January 2017 – Compute Module 3 and Compute Module 3 Lite are launched
  • March 2018 – Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ was introduced
  • 15 November 2018 – (Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ launched)[https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/new-product-raspberry-pi-3-model-a/]
  • 2018: The Raspberry Pi 4 is released.
  • November 2018 – The Raspberry Pi 3 A+ is released
  • June 2019 – Raspberry Pi 4 Model B was launched
  • November 2020 – The Raspberry Pi 400 is released
  • January 2021 – The Raspberry Pi Pico is released
  • 28 September 2023 – (Raspberry Pi 5 was announced)[https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/introducing-raspberry-pi-5/]
  • 2 Nov. 2023 - Raspberry Pi Receives Strategic Investment from Arm

The Raspberry Pi has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 2006. It is now one of the most popular SBCs in the world, and has had a significant impact on the computer industry. Since 2016, it's also the most computer sold in UK overtaking the 5m-selling Sinclair ZX Spectrum from the 80s, the BBC Micro, which sold only 1.5m units and was discontinued in 1994 and above all the Amstrad PCW’s 8 million machines record in 1998. The Raspberry Pi has helped to make computing more accessible and affordable for everyone.

All models combined, approximately 50 million units of the stripped-back microcomputer designed for education have been manufactured to date.

  • September 2012: 500 000 devices sold
  • October 2013: 2 million
  • February 2015: 5 million
  • September 2016: 10 million
  • February 2017: 12.5 million
  • July 2017: 15 million
  • March 2018: 19 million