10 years of Raspberry Pi

When the developers of the Raspberry Pi launched the first model almost exactly 10 years ago, they expected to sell around 10,000 units. In the meantime, more than 45 million devices have been sold. Countless projects have been developed since then - and they are growing every day.

Almost exactly 10 years ago – on February 29, 2012 – the big day arrived: The first model of the Raspberry Pi was released. It was developed by engineers and experts from the computer industry, who joined forces in the Raspberry Pi Foundation back in 2008 and also distribute the Pi under this name. After the number of units unexpectedly exceeded the 100,000 mark, the first distribution partners were sought and found in Farnell and RS Components. According to Eben Upton, one of the founders, the 100,000 order mark was reached on the first evening. Upton says they were able to deliver those by the end of October 2012, at which time they were already working on the Model B of the first version. According to Upton, one million units of the popular single-board computers were sold in the first 12 months – today, more than 45 million units worldwide have been sold. Production was initially in China, but has been in Wales since September 2012 in a Sony production facility.

The original idea behind the Pi computer was to counteract the declining number of computer science students at Cambridge University. The idea was to give students an easy way to develop their own programs quickly and enjoyably. In addition, the first computer was priced at only 35 US dollars – the price has remained almost stable to this day. Only the price of the current model 4B is a bit higher. Raspberry follows the success of other large computer manufacturers with fruit names such as Apple. Pi originally stood for Python Interpreter, as the hobby computer was supposed to come with a pre-installed Python interpreter.

Getting young people excited about STEM professions

In the meantime, the Raspberry Pi has made it far beyond the status of a »hobby computer«. Many companies, such as Kunbus or Kontron Electronics, have implemented the single-board computer in industrial products. The Foundation has also continued to drive development. Thus, there are now five more generations of the original basic model, with some more sub-models. The current Model 4B of the popular single-board computer has been on the market since June 2019. In addition, the Foundation has developed further devices based on the Raspberry Pi basic model, for example the Pi Zero, the Compute Module or the Pi Pico. In addition, a camera module, displays, cases and cables. Furthermore, a wide range of plug-on modules, the so-called »HATs« (Hardware attached on top). CPUs from Broadcom are at the heart of the computers. They are based on the Arm architecture; in the current 4B model, an Arm Cortex A-72 core operates at 1,500 MHz. In the meantime, the Foundation has even developed its own CPU - the »RP2040« was launched in January 2021. It is installed in the Raspberry Pi Pico, for example, but also on Arduino or SparkFun boards. As for the operating system, the engineers around Upton first worked on the so-called »Raspbian«, an Arm-v6 adaptation based on Debian. This forms the basis for today's own operating system »Raspberry Pi OS«.

According to Upton, there is a wide range of applications: The Pi has already flown in the international space station, in weather balloons and has been installed in supercomputers. Moreover, during the pandemic, many children learned programming at home with the Pi. The Foundation is doing good pioneering work, especially in the area of STEM professions. It creates curricula and teacher training programs that help improve the quality of computer education in schools. In addition, young people get involved in »code clubs« or »coder dojos«. Partnerships with youth and community organizations complete the Foundation's activities.

The broad developer community, which publishes its projects freely on various platforms, has also contributed to the Foundation's success. This makes it easy to replicate interesting projects and share one' own projects with others. A good reason why the Raspberry Pi Foundation and all developers can look forward to the upcoming 10 years with great anticipation.