
Raspberri PI Release Announcement - aespinoza
http://www.raspberrypi.org/#foundation
======
jacquesm
I love it how people are pissing on this as though it is a failure. Really,
unbelievable. Here is a group of dedicated guys and girls that work their
asses off to produce a $25 computer with more punch than you'd ever think
possible for that amount of money.

Not only do they deliver, they are sold out in absolute record time with the
sites simply collapsing under the load.

I'd chalk this one up as a success, definitely not a failure and I fully
expect the second (and subsequent) runs of the RaspberryPi to have a similar
effect. Kudos to Eben, Liz and the rest of the team, you guys _really_ rock
and I hope that you won't let the sourpusses ruin your fantastic day for you.

I've watched the RaspberryPi saga closely from day 1 and I'm very very happy
to see it come to fruit ;)

~~~
asb
Not to forget: they all have day jobs. People have been worrying for ages
about how Raspberry Pi will deal with the demand and get out of a process of
making batches, having them sell out instantly and then using that capital to
build the next batch. Eben talks about why the RS and Farnell partnership is a
big deal and will help to solve that problem in this video interview:

[http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/02/28/2347222/raspberr...](http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/02/28/2347222/raspberry-
pi-now-has-distributors----and-will-soon-have-boards-for-all-video)

~~~
jacquesm
Indeed. Just to put into perspective what a huge event this launch was: for a
short while (about 10 minutes) the RasberryPi outsold the iPhone 4:1.

Of course, Apple moves 250 iphones per minute all the time but there was
absolutely no way that a small outfit like this could have anticipated and/or
met this insane surge of demand. I sure hope it validates the concept to
everybody that was still doubting and I hope that we'll soon be able to mark
the 100K, 1M and up milestones of units sold.

------
fmstephe
This reaction is really surprising to me. The Raspberry Pi charity was set up
in order to produce a product that could be used as an education tool. They
have managed a spectacular feat, that has been 6 years in the making. This is
a very exciting development but not just from a technical point of view. The
Raspberry Pi represents the idea that computers are interesting to us
intrinsically, that there is real value in providing a platform that allows
for the development and satisfaction of a crucial intellectual curiosity. The
true value of the Raspberry Pi will not be found in our mailboxes in the next
few months. It will be in the possibility that the next generation will have
something to hack on that prioritises learning and discovery over walled
gardens.

Sorry for the preachy tone (it's not intended), I am sure that most people
feel the same way (or something similar), but it feels like we have lost some
perspective while getting up at 6am to order some electronics over the
internet. This is a great day. (I have a son and the Raspberry Pi feels like
the most exciting project I have seen to date)

~~~
PKeeble
Education might be the stated aim of the project but its not the limit of the
device. This is a device similar to an Arduino except for the fact its got
HDMI, USB, is about 700 times faster and in the order of 256 million times
more RAM and its only 25% more expensive. Its a hardware hackers delight and a
desktop capable computer. It is also a very real competitor for nettops which
sell in the millions at a price point 5-10x higher than this.

It may very well be used by students to code, but that will be a niche it
falls into right behind becoming the cheapest desktop capable computer ever
built that isn't locked down. This could very well start a revolution in
portable desktop computers that are really cheap. I personally think it is an
exciting device but let down by the narrow vision of its application.

~~~
fmstephe
I agree with everything you have said about the potential of the Raspberry Pi.
My surprise was at the tone of the reaction on this thread. That these people
have spent this long on such a worthy project and have produced something that
is probably truly exceptional. We should be grateful and excited. I don't
think it has been let down at all. We will all get one, just maybe not
immediately.

~~~
PKeeble
Right now no one knows when the release will be. What we have here is a
limited beta release to 10,000 people or so, not the actual product launch.
That will be coming at an unknown point in the future, probably. People are
frustrated by this realisation because the makers claimed it would be the real
release. But I think its been obvious for at least 2 months that it would
exactly what it is today (no one expected the website to die of course but the
product selling out in seconds they predicted correctly).

They deserve criticism for getting the launch wrong. Until the hardware gets
tested we don't know if that works. My fear is that the hardware shows the
same lack of attention and it doesn't work very well. It needs to be called
what it is, a potentially great product with a disastrously bad launch.

~~~
jacquesm
Really, you're totally misreading this.

They got the product right and there was absolutely no way in hell that they
could have done better than this at launch day. If they had sold 10 units I'm
sure you would have had your criticism ready as well and to extrapolate from
selling out in 10 minutes flat to 'fear that the hardware shows the same lack
of attention and it doesn't work very well' is simply stupid.

If you want to criticize the RasberryPi folks then I suggest you show us all
how you will do better. I'll be cheering you on, even if you sell out on day
one.

------
lancefisher
Fulfillment by Amazon would be awesome for this. Free two-day shipping and the
site wouldn't go down.

Edit: Seriously, you send them a big box, and they mail out all the little
boxes. Check it out: [http://www.amazonservices.com/content/fulfillment-by-
amazon....](http://www.amazonservices.com/content/fulfillment-by-
amazon.htm#!features-and-benefits)

~~~
youlost_thegame
Only that Amazon doesn't ship electronics to outside the US, and thus
international customers wouldn't be able to get them. Since the Foundation is
from the UK, they probably know that.

Maybe they didn't go for the best option, but I always like to remind the US
customers (who usually just don't honestly know about Amazon's restrictions)
that buying electronics from them is a bad idea for the international market

~~~
wheels
Amazon has sites all over the world, including the UK, for which it also
offers fulfillment services.

I suspect the larger reason this hasn't been done yet is that it allows them
to first take the orders and then scale the production run size to that.

~~~
JCB_K
All over the world? They've got sites in 9 countries.

~~~
kamjam
For most people in the US, that it is all over the world! </sarc>

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
And beyond

------
cicero
This is a very inexpensive product produced by a charity. How can they afford
what it would take for a launch like this to run flawlessly? I work for a non-
profit that does all it can to provide a high quality service at a below
market price, so I have sympathy for these guys. If you want first class
service from day one, expect to pay a little more than $35. Even Apple with
their high profit margins has had difficulty with launches for high demand
products.

~~~
fmstephe
I agree with this wholeheartedly. It is alarming the sense of entitlement in
this thread. Everything we get from these guys is a gift.

~~~
wtffffff
I agree about the sense of entitlement. However, these people get paid. They
are not gifting anything to us anymore than Microsoft gifts us with Windows.

~~~
wtracy
If they're telling the truth, then I don't think so:

"The Foundation continues to make a small profit from each Raspberry Pi sold,
which we’ll be putting straight back into the charity."

------
egypturnash
Man, I looked at Twitter, replied to someone, and went off to do something
else like ONE MINUTE before the "hey you can buy the pi now" tweet. Twenty
minutes later both the people ready to sell me one were totally swamped.

Guess I don't get one from the first batch. Woe is me. Somehow I will survive!

You know, as problems for a startup to have go, "demand for your product is so
strong the servers selling it go down within twenty minutes" is a PRETTY GOOD
PROBLEM.

~~~
noonespecial
I was there right on the second. I didn't get one either. It was just server
load lottery that determined the winners.

~~~
finnw
I think you would have to already have an account with one of the distributors
to stand a chance. It's hard enough to get one page to load, but I would guess
registering and placing an order would involve at least 5 clicks.

~~~
noonespecial
I've got one for RS. I was thrilled to see it listed. I thought I'd have an
advantage. Nope.

------
rmk2
I am really disappointed about their choice of distributors. Neither Farnell's
nor RS Components subsidiaries in Germany and Austria ship to private
individuals, you have to be a corporate buyer in order to be able to order
from them. And since they "have" local subsidiaries, the "international" sites
of both companies don't ship to either country.

In short: in Germany or Austria, you cannot buy the Raspberry Pi unless you go
through an intermediary. This seems to be a _really_ bad choice for a platform
aimed at education.

And judging by the Twitter comments, at least (potential) customers in Sweden
and the Netherlands have the same problem.

<http://twitter.com/#!/Raspberry_Pi/status/174752572194824192>

<http://twitter.com/#!/Raspberry_Pi/status/174779094783897600>

I guess what bothers me is how they don't seem to care too much about not
being buyable by private entities in a number of European countries, or how
they at least didn't bother to check up-front...

Still, I hope I can get one of the next batches _somehow_

~~~
maayank
You can use a forwarding service like <http://www.ukpostbox.com>

~~~
rmk2
I know that there are ways. There is apparently also an intermediary i
Austria. I'll have a look at that forwarding site.

I just wanted to point that out, since it gets drowned a bit on Twitter and I
didn't see much posted about it.

------
akavel
On one hand, old wisdom creeps in: "if you really want something done well, do
it yourself". But on the other hand, if they happened to fail selling at
raspberrypi.com, everyone and his dog would be accusing them of hubris and
suggesting they should have relied on "verified distributors".

The only thing I'm a bit sad about, is that probably the distro companies will
evade any consequences. And even if they didn't, it would probably hit some
random guys and not anyone really responsible for the incompetency.

Edit: I think I would feel some evil (bad, bad me!) satisfaction if R-Pi
Foundation would punish the distro corps by not letting them distribute any
further batches of R-Pi for as long as possible. But again, that would
probably hurt most the common employees, not the management.

~~~
Lewisham
One picks their partners. It's certainly not the first time things have gone
badly wrong when picking a partner, and you'd think that as a bunch of techies
they might have seen this coming.

It's clear they chose their partners based on their manufacturing chops,
rather than their retail chops. To be fair, RS Components has a huge customer
base in the UK; it's basically The Place You Go when you need electronic
components in large quantities.

Arguably what Raspberry Pi could/should have done was use Arduino's model of
having licensed manufacturers and they could have sat in front of it, and, as
has been suggested elsewhere in the thread, just ship giant boxes to Amazon to
actually do all the dirty work. This would have covered the US, Europe and
Japan (if you ship to all Amazon's fulfillment centers), which would have been
plenty I think.

~~~
DanBC
They're both part of large international companies. This first shipment is
disappointing to many people. Hopefully crashing the servers so hard will give
both these distributors some idea of what the demand is, and they'll get some
large production runs going, and shift some stock to international
distribution partners.

> _RS Components has a huge customer base in the UK; it's basically The Place
> You Go when you need electronic components in large quantities._

RS is where you go when you have an account and need small amounts of
components on a regular basis. Buying large quantities of components results
in a very frustrating experience.

See, for example, the way they sell surface mount components. Buy qty 500 of
0805 SM resistors and Farnell will send you a strip of 500 while RS will sell
you 50 little strips of 10 per strip. Or the way that individual parts are
bagged.

------
scommab
> We are no longer limited to batches of only 10k Raspberry Pis; the Raspberry
> Pi will now be being built to match demand.

To me this is the key point. No need to fight through the rush tonight, there
will enough to go around.

~~~
notatoad
If I'm reading it right, tonight will be the first batch of 10k, the 'later in
2012' release that we will be able to pre-order for will be from their
licensed partners and not so limited in quantity.

I could be wrong, I can't seem to access any website claiming to sell it.

~~~
solarmist
You appear to be right. "We believe Farnell has sold out already. Blimey."

~~~
derda
Farnell had a product site up at launch time. When I first clicked "Add to
Basket" I got a "Could not determine product stock, please try again" error.
The second time just some AjaxError. And then the whole shopping cart crashed.
Now they are serving a "Site unavailible" Page. I really wonder if they
managed to sell all the stock before the page was DDOS'ed.

------
TomAnthony
Phoned RS and the hold message is great:

"But you don't have to wait. With our world class system you can be confident
_you can get what you want when want it_. Did you know while you listened to
this message you could have placed your order online."

------
mrpippy
Everyone in the US:

The Raspberry Pi is now listed on Newark/element14 (Farnell's US site):
<http://www.newark.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/dp/83T1943>

It's $35, although there's also a 30 day lead time and a $20 handling fee
(because it's shipping directly from the UK).

~~~
sitharus
Ouch, it's less than that in NZ from element14!

------
noonespecial
The production partnerships are encouraging news. Here's hoping my predictions
on the Pi being more of a boutique/hobby venture that couldn't meet demand are
wrong. I never thought they had much of a chance 10k at a time with weeks in
between runs.

Of course, their servers (at the suppliers) seem to be meeting their little
digital Gods at the moment. They just went static at the org.

------
handelaar
And after they spent the past couple of weeks cockily batting away concerns
about how they'd handle the traffic load, too. "You're all talking like we
don't know what we're doing" is the line I recall being used several times.

~~~
learc83
_They_ did seem to know what they were doing. They put up a temporary static
site to handle the traffic.

However, their suppliers, who are apparently fairly large companies, haven't
been able to handle it. They said they warned them that the traffic would be
enormous.

~~~
libria
Obviously people were only expressing concern because they were interested in
purchasing reliably, not because they were worried about Rpi's server uptime
numbers. It's a little trollish for them to blame their distributors and say
"Our site is fine".

~~~
sliverstorm
So what are you paying the distributors for then, if not for their
infrastructure?

------
TomAnthony
RS on Twitter: <https://twitter.com/#!/rselectronics>

They tweeted at 6am to link to the page, then not since.

Farnell on Twitter: <https://twitter.com/#!/farnellnews>

They at least tweeted at 6.30 to say they are trying to fix the problems.

------
adaml_623
Given the large amount of worry on this thread about getting one of the first
10000 I'm really looking forwards to seeing hundreds of blog posts and stories
about people doing really interesting thing with their hard-fought purchases.

I'm only being half sarcastic. I really would like to see people do cool
things with these. And I will be disappointed if it turns out that 9500 of
them end up in a drawer after the first weekend.

~~~
freehunter
I would fear more that 9500 of them end up on eBay at $200 per unit until the
next batch comes along. I really don't like people profiting from squatting.

~~~
ajays
Then the eBay buyers would post projects. Eventually the units (or most of
them) will end up in the hands of a hacker, regardless of the route taken to
get there.

~~~
gaius
They're not supposed to end up in the hands of hackers for $200+. They're
supposed to end up in the hands of kids for $35.

~~~
learc83
This first run is not the educational release. These are specifically for
hackers.

The educational release will be later this year, and will include cases, power
supplies, and an OS for the same price. This release is lacking all those.

This early release is for hackers to play with, develop projects, and write
tutorials, so that there is an ecosystem already in place for the educational
release.

~~~
moonchrome
>This early release is for hackers to play with, develop projects, and write
tutorials, so that there is an ecosystem already in place for the educational
release.

A shame that the GPU specs aren't open, I would love to get in to GPU driver
development with something like this.

------
xahrepap
Here's what I'm getting from Farnell:

    
    
      > Site unavailable
      > Our websites are currently unavailable whilst we perform a scheduled system upgrade.
    

Scheduled? Yeah, if by scheduled they mean "unexpected but seriously needed"
then I'll buy in to that. :)

~~~
Ecio78
probably it's just a fixed message they have on their system (load balancers?)
that pops up when the real webservers are meltin^H^H^H^H^H^H not responding :)

------
krelian
I'll admit that I haven't been following this very closely, what makes this
product this craze worthy compared to something like the Arduino?

~~~
glogla
Arduino, while nice and useful (I used it more than once), it's much less than
raspberrypi. Arduino's power comes from the community, nice IDE and a lot of
examples that are easy to grasp even for someone who is not a CS major. It is
wonderful if you want to make you off-shelf PC communicate with simple
engines, many types of sensors, things like that, and it's easy to connect to
Processing or puredata, it's basically what you get if you want an interactive
art piece and don't want to mess with assembler, bootloaders, and whatever.

However, Arduino is 30 USD for ATmega, 20 I/O pins and a USB you can use to
program it. Raspberrypi is 35 USD (1) for ARM as powerful as the one in
iPhone, with 256 MB RAM, HDMI output, two USB ports you can use to connect
peripherals, allegedly powerful graphic processors (though it's probably going
to have proprietary bloby drivers) and an Ethernet ports. Oh, and some I/O
pins too.

It's basically a general purpose computer, allegedly as powerful as Pentium
III (2), as big as Arduino, and taking slightly more but still incredibly
small amount of power.

For further comparison, BeagleBoard has slightly better connectivity but worse
CPU and graphics, and is bigger, and is 150 USD (about 4x the cost).
PandaBoard is faster but similar and is 170 USD (little less than five times
the cost). And yesterdays Arstechnica article speaks about similar computer in
shape of a small flashdisk with slightly faster CPU than raspberry and ! GB
ram costing 200 USD.

This is like free.fr for ARM development boards. It doesn't mean Arduino is
finished or something (it's best thing was always the simplicity - anything
you can do with Arduino can be done with plain ATmega and some hacking and
they're dime a dozen) but it's nice.

(1): though local prices vary. Here Arduino is listed as about 1 USD less than
raspberry.

(2): I can't remember where I read that, and it might've been Pentium II, so
don't quote me on that, plese

~~~
GlennS
If anything I think I would expect this to help Arduino by expanding the
overall size of the market.

------
waitwhat
People might have some luck with their telephone ordering

    
    
        RS Online: +44 8457 201201
        Farnell:   +44 8447 111111
    

(Although I have been on hold with RS for a while now...)

~~~
waitwhat
After 25 minutes on hold with RS, I spoke to an agent. She was
(understandably) a bit flustered, so this might not be correct, but what I
gathered was:

    
    
        * She couldn't take an order
        * They weren't going to be able to take an order today
        * What I should be doing is "registering an interest" online when the website comes back up
        * Noone had ordered anything today, although a few had managed to register an interest before the website melted

~~~
corin_
The one I just spoke to said they are waiting for managers to come in to sort
out what's going on, so far they don't even have stock numbers and all they
know about this product is what's shown on their own website.

------
DanBC
BBC Radio Four's "Today" programme are talking about Raspberry PI right now.
They haven't mentioned server problems yet, or the fact that it's sold out
already.

(<http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/default.stm>)

(7:45am Wednesday 29th Feb)

~~~
noonespecial
7:51: Now they have. Right after thought of the day. With a laugh.

------
revelation
What a tremendous failure. Why check with your distributors before going live?
It's not even the traffic; RS never sold any and for the rare moment that you
could get to Farnell, they were already (or always have been) out of stock
from minute one.

~~~
DanBC
Who is this a tremendous failure for? RaspberryPI, or Farnell and RS?

~~~
djhworld
The distributors tbh.

I'd imagine traffic to their website on a normal day is relatively low. Even
though they're worldwide companies, their market is pretty niche.

~~~
topbanana
It might seem niche to you but these two companies keep a whole industry going
in the UK!

------
X-Istence
The electronics suppliers are not used to this kind of traffic. I remember
Ti's website grounding to a halt when I was first in college when they
released a new kit for free, and in the past when they have done coupons for
half off certain high value items. Interesting side note, Ti for its free
samples uses Digikey to process them (same address, same exact boxes,
packaging and onetime when I ordered a free sample I got Digikey note rather
than a Ti note :P)

The traffic for those websites generally is very low, I can't imagine that
they are ready for anything to what they are seeing right now.

I do wish they had also launched with Digikey my favourite electronic parts
distributor. Their shipping is always top notch and their service is
absolutely fantastic.

~~~
yardie
That wasn't the case for my last order from TI. I ordered there EZ430
launchpad kits and according to the shipping label it came from a TI office in
malaysia. I was originally going to go through Digikey but they wanted 5x ($20
instead of $4) the price.

~~~
X-Istence
You purchased them from TI. I was referring to their samples.

All the stuff I've purchased from TI has indeed been shipped directly from TI
itself and not through Digikey.

~~~
ssmall
If I remember right, last time I got samples from TI they shipped from them
and not from digikey. Its been a little bit.

Location might play in to it some, I live about 15 min away from their
headquarters.

~~~
X-Istence
That is entirely possible, but with over 20+ sample shipments over a year
while living in Phoenix I only received samples shipped from Digikeys
facilities.

------
donohoe
What do people plan to use their Raspberry PI for?

Given the nature of HN I'm intrigued to see what unique and innovate ideas
people here may have...

~~~
drivebyacct2
It is capable of doing 1080p decoding. I no longer need a Blu-ray player,
Boxee box, Roku box, anything. I have an HDTV, I plug this into it with XBMC
installed. Boom. I can stream anything from anywhere. It's also AirPlay
enabled. Any TV just became a _very_ smart TV for $35.

If you're not familiar with XBMC, prepare to have your mind blown.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Not having Wifi kills this option for me personally.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Buy a WRT54gl, put dd-wrt on it, set it up as a client-bridge, now you can
network your xbox, HTPC, PS3, etc. easily.

~~~
skeletonjelly
This is what I did to move the big blue ugly cable running across the entrance
hallway. Wife loves the change :)

Granted, I'm playing content off the same box.

------
Jun8
According to their tweet 4m ago, Farnell has already sold out! How people got
on the site is a mystery.

------
pavlov
I got an order in this morning at Farnell Finland, and just received an order
confirmation by email.

The delivery date is quoted as "week 16", which is mid-April. Oh well.

------
jrmg
Curious as to why they chose 6AM UK time to launch. I wonder if RS or Farnell
tech staff are actually at work ready to handle the server problems?

~~~
semisight
The first batch was limited to 10K units. Their logic was probably that the
most devoted fans would take the time to get up early, and the rest would buy
from the subsequent batches.

------
ef4
A recurring theme in these comments has been the hassles of doing things like
fulfillment (can't use Amazon) and payment-processing (can't use Kickstarter)
across national borders.

If you want to build the killer app for the 21st century, figure out how to
help people route money and physical objects globally, with all these
obnoxious borders abstracted away. ;-)

------
solarmist
From the tweets. "We believe Farnell has sold out already. Blimey."

~~~
aespinoza
It is sad... I wasn't able to even get to see the site... let alone buy one.

~~~
MichaelStubbs
I was able to see RS and "register my interest", but apparently that doesn't
equate to buying one. Then of course the Raspberry Pi team tweet that we're
"on the wrong page" without even investigating the issue first.

Most annoying.

~~~
tagawa
> without even investigating the issue first

I think they've been a bit busy...

------
hinathan
They've used a classic software engineering technique to solve a manufacturing
problem — just add an additional abstraction layer. I'm thrilled they'll have
more capacity but also a little sad I can't pick a few up at the Jameco will-
call desk tomorrow.

------
tomdeakin
[http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120228006472/en/RS-C...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120228006472/en/RS-
Components-Announces-Launch-Raspberry-Pi-35)

That's from RS's Twitter feed. Not exactly the praises I'd sing right now.

------
endlessvoid94
I'm sorry, but I don't know what Raspberri PI is. The site literally doesn't
tell me anything about the actual product. I see an image of an arduino-like
board -- is that it?

Not being snotty or anything, I just literally can't find any information on
the site.

~~~
noonespecial
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi>

There's usually more at their site, they went static about a half hour ago
because of the load on their servers.

------
libria
> The $25 Model A has been reworked to include 256MB of RAM – double what we
> were originally planning to offer

So the extra $10 will only buy you an ethernet and spare USB port now; makes
the $35 a harder sell (but not tonight, of course).

~~~
Ecio78
I dont think so, if you need ethernet connection you need to buy an external
lan/wifi card, spend at least a couple of bucks (3$ if you are lucky?)), lose
one usb port (or use an usb hub), hope it will work in your OS, just to save
some bucks (10-3 = 7$). For me, no way

~~~
moonchrome
However WLAN beats LAN, especially if I chose to build a small case and use
this as a HTPC that I can use to watch.

~~~
Ecio78
is the wifi powerful enough for full HD streaming? I think the typical sub-10$
chinese WLAN card is just b/g

~~~
makomk
Eh, you seem to be able to get dirt-cheap USB b/g/n adapters too these days,
though they're presumably 2.4 GHz only and who knows what the ARM Linux
support is like for them.

------
polshaw
I can't say I can hold zero blame for the rPi gang on this clusterfuck..
offloading the task was never going to help, it should have been obvious
RS/Farnell were not ready- Amazon were the only retailer that could have
handled it. But I don't see why they couldn't have handled the orders
themselves (Amazon again?).

Apparently someone from RS sales has now said they aren't selling any until
the end of the week! How insanely disorganised.

And 10K was also clearly never going to be close-- there were even far more
forum members than this. I wouldn't be so grumpy if they didn't make me get up
at 6AM for this crap.

~~~
Ecio78
"They’ll be manufacturing and distributing the devices on behalf of the
Raspberry Pi Foundation"

I dont think Amazon is in the business of manufactoring hardware for others.

~~~
noonespecial
Yes, but this was the _launch_ being done with boards that were _already
built_ in China. What they really wanted to have happen today was to get the
10,000 units into the hands of their fans as quickly and painlessly as
possible, get a polite apology to those who didn't get one, and then hit the
PR bell with their big brass "sold them all in 10 minutes" hammer.

"Nobody knows what the hell happened but I didn't get one" is probably not the
takeaway they were hoping for on launch day.

~~~
Lewisham
Yeah, not getting one is one thing. The probably inevitable emails of "Yeah,
you know we charged your credit card and said we'd ship you a Raspberry Pi...
well, we're not... please wait 4-8 weeks" are far, _far_ worse.

------
tnajdek
I've just ordered one over the phone, Farnell adds a surcharge so the grand
total is a little over £36. Surprisingly no wait time on the phone whatsoever!
The number is 08447111111.

~~~
corford
I just called them on that number and was told they've sold out, next batch
available in 4 to 5 weeks. Bummer :(

------
ukdm
FYI, if you order through Farnell, the total comes to £31.86 with free
delivery. The device is actually £26.55 but then there's VAT to add in the UK.

------
sowbug
Probably no more than a curiosity, but
[http://cn.element14.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?id=2081...](http://cn.element14.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?id=2081185&Ntt=raspberry)
(Farnell's China site) will show you the product page. Even Google Translate
seems to be slashdotted, so I'm not going to try to get through that checkout
process.

------
unwind
Too late to have someone change the typo in the product's name in the title?
It ends with a 'Y', not an 'I'. Aaargh.

~~~
obtu
Capitalisation too: Raspberry Pi

------
RLG_RLG
I'm sure they will be on ebay -- for $300

~~~
joezydeco
Why downvote this guy? He's right.

I'd wager that a non-insignificant % of the people scrambling to order want to
get their hands on one to flip it on eBay. Watch what happens when they start
shipping.

~~~
drivebyacct2
And if someone needs one this week instead of waiting 2-3 weeks, then they're
free to spend $300. Otherwise the seller is just playing to buyer's stupidity.
Oh well.

~~~
joezydeco
I think it's going to be longer than 2-3 weeks to get one.

Regardless, I don't see what the urgency is. If there's something you need to
develop on an embedded ARM SoC, there are plenty of other more available (and
less publicized) options.

------
solarmist
Anyone have a link to the product pages for either of the suppliers? I can
only find an "interest in" page.

~~~
gmurphy
These are supposedly the links, though both sites are down. The third was just
an "express an interest" page, as the supplier didn't yet have the appropriate
page up.

[http://export.farnell.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/sbc-
ras...](http://export.farnell.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/sbc-raspberry-pi-
model-b/dp/2081185)

[http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/bespoke/bespoke7.jsp?ICID=I-RASP-H...](http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/bespoke/bespoke7.jsp?ICID=I-RASP-
HPBLOF-0015&bespokepage=farnell/en_UK/promotions/raspberryPi.jsp)

<http://uk.rs-online.com/web/generalDisplay.html>

------
waitwhat
The Farnell product page came up briefly for me:
[http://uk.farnell.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/sbc-
raspber...](http://uk.farnell.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/sbc-raspberry-pi-
model-b/dp/2081185)

(but the servers are still melting, so the buy links weren't working)

------
rjsamson
The hard link that RS had given out on their twitter was here: [http://uk.rs-
online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=raspberry...](http://uk.rs-
online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=raspberrypi) if anyone wants to keep
trying...

~~~
pbhjpbhj
That gives me, in the UK, "Register here to express an interest in Raspberry
Pi". Which I did.

Farnell then tell you:

"By providing your contact details you are agreeing for your details to be
used for marketing purposes by companies within the Premier Farnell Group."

Which I find rather off-putting.

~~~
DanBC
And since they are, in theory, business to business you don't get the already
weak UK legal spam protection.

------
solarmist
Both sites slashdotted in under a minute. Nice. No one can say they weren't
warned.

~~~
linker3000
It's reasonable to assume that even though both companies were warned that
traffic to their sites would skyrocket they probably wouldn't have invested in
any new infrastructure to just support one new product - probably more of a
'take note, grin and bear it' stance.

~~~
solarmist
No, but there are a lot of other things they could've done. EC2 anyone?

~~~
linker3000
Farnell: THANK YOU FOR YOUR ORDER

Goods Subtotal: £26.55 Basic Shipping: £0.00 VAT: £5.31 Total: £31.86

\--->>> Further stock available in 30 days

I'll believe it when I have the board in my hands though!

Order confirmation email just come in:

Description

SBC, RASPBERRY PI, MODEL B

Qty Ordered 1

Qty to Follow 1

Estimated Delivery W/C 12/03/2012

That's 12th March for our foreign friends -at least I hope its not 3rd Dec!!

~~~
linker3000
At work now (an electronics/tech company) - just been passed a message from
our Farnell accounts manager; they're talking mid April for orders placed now.
Looks like I may get my personal one (as above) first.

Waiting for info from our RS accounts manager - RS seem a little less briefed
about the whole thing - hmmm.

Oh, yes - it bears repeating that RS are (and always have been) _trade only_
and are very unlikely to take orders from individuals - for many, Farnell will
be the better bet.

------
flannell
Just got a broken CSS site, now says;

[http://uk.farnell.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/sbc-
raspber...](http://uk.farnell.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/sbc-raspberry-pi-
model-b/dp/2081185)

Availability: Awaiting Delivery

... so back to work...

------
linker3000
Gosh - this person on ebay ships in 5-6 days and has already sold 28.

[http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290...](http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290677406685)

/Ya think?

~~~
robinduckett
I don't know how he can get away with this. To have that many he must have a
deal with RS - the 5 - 6 day shipping date must be first class after he
receives however many he's ordered through RS as a sub-distributer otherwise
this goes against the 1 per person completely.

~~~
linker3000
What he _says_ he has, and what he has _in reality_ are possibly quite
different. He's _sold_ 28 - not sure how many have been _delivered_

Edit: From the RasPi Twitter feed - they said it... _@Raspberry_Pi EVERYONE!
Stop posting that ebay item!. He is a scammer and getting more sales from
here. Pic posted is the Alpha proto board_

------
joejohnson
What cool plans do people have for these if they can get their hands on one?

~~~
finnw
Probably not quite what the designers intended, but...

I plan to put one in an aluminium box with some SRAM and an anti-tamper
switch, store keys in the SRAM and use it to back up TrueCrypted thumb drives.

Should be more secure than mounting them on an internet-connected PC just to
back them up.

------
RobertKohr
This all seems like a pricing problem. If you don't have enough product to
meet demand, you charge more.

I guess in the end it is worth it though. The amount of hype that surrounds
selling out is great.

~~~
teraflop
If your goal is to maximize profit, sure. But Raspberry Pi is a registered
non-profit organization.

------
illumen
Competition in the computer education space is nice.

OLPC comes with: screen, case, power supply, battery, cam, Source Code, wifi,
training, & doesn't require £400 TV that can run code already.

------
yahelc
I'm a little peeved. I signed up for the email notifications and did the
confirmation and everything, and never got the email saying they were opening
up for orders. :-/

------
mrbill
Ordered two from Newark (I'm in the US); the order confirmation email has an
Expected Ship Date of 5/10/12.

I've got a BeagleBoard C2 and a BeagleBone to play with until then...

------
locusm
I managed to buy one in Australia, I had it in my cart at about 4:10PM, took
till 2 mins ago(5:08PM) to finish checkout. No word if its a backorder or
not...

~~~
locusm
Also, weird that Farnell had 2 product pages, one for $38AUD, another for $50
- both were listed as model B.

------
TomAnthony
RS are apparently refusing to sell to private people - business orders only
according to several people on Twitter who got through on the phone. Nice job.

~~~
__alexs
They are a trade supplier, usually you can just invent a company name for the
purposes of the order though. They don't check your VAT registration or
anything.

------
rjsamson
It looks like the RS site is coming back online - but their Raspberry Pi
product page still only says "register to express an interest"...

------
ww520
What kind of casing is there for holding the board? It would nice to have a
case, like the Marvell wallplug computer.

------
switz
What's the prices in USD (I'm seeing $50.45 from Farnell)? Has anyone from the
US officially ordered one? Shipping?

------
marklittlewood
I believe in eating your own dog food but it's fine if @Raspberry_Pi use
someone else's tech for their ecommerce.

------
steeves
Was anyone here able to order?

~~~
djhworld
I've registered my interest with RS components but I doubt I'll be quick
enough to get one when they go on sale

------
w-ll
It seams neither of their distributors where shipping these to the US?

------
slash-dot
What's the max resolution on the gpu?

------
zvrba
Maybe I'm clueless, but why would you order one if you already have a PC?

~~~
DanBC
Because you want a teeny tiny Arm development board? Because you want to make
a fanless media server? Because you want to learn programming and your elder
brother is hogging the PC surfing for whatever teenage boys surf for?

~~~
zvrba
So it's a minicomputer without the disk, keyboard, mouse, screen, and
speakers, which quickly adds up to $250 with cheapest components if you want
to use it as a general-purpose computer.

At the same time, it runs linux and the same linux distro runs also in qemu,
so you can do most of the develompent without actual hardware. So where's the
rush, why does everybody have to get it right now?

~~~
eupharis
No. $250 is ridiculous, even for buying everything new. I just spent 2 minutes
googling:

    
    
      Amazon Class Class 10 8 GB SD Card: $9
      Best Buy 20" LCD: $90
      Keyboard: $15
      Mouse: $7.54
      Speakers: $10.54
      Total: $132.08
    

If you go to your local thriftstore, you could get all of these for <$50. Not
sure if you have ever been a poor kid or not, but take it from me, this
computer WILL bring computing to kids who would not otherwise have access.

~~~
zvrba
OK, living in Norway, prices are "somewhat" higher. On the website of a
popular computer-shop (digitalimpuls.no), the cheapest screen I found was
Iiyama LCD 24" for 1100 NOK =~ 200 USD. (All other screens, also smaller, were
more expensive.)

~~~
eupharis
Ah ok. That makes sense. As an American, I take it as my god-given right to
jump to conclusions based on American conditions ;)

I also had the thought that at many American schools/libraraies I bet you
could find a sympathetic IT guy to give ya some old parts that are on their
way to the scrap yard. And I know of at least one computer non-profit recycler
in my city that would hook kids up.

Point is, the peripherals of computers, including monitors to a certain
extent, are abundant. Tiny, relatively fast computers capable of putting out
1080p are not.... Or I guess I should say weren't!

------
suckerpunch
Man... I currently work in the same company as Ian Livingstone and he promised
a couple of us some boards to use in our next project. I hope he comes
through. I started off on the Beeb and the ZX Spectrum and it's be great to
come full circle 30 years later :D

------
Kaostricks
Waiting for this.

------
PKeeble
The one thing you can say about incompetence is that its ignorant of its own
condition.

This does not bode well to the quality of the product itself, the lack of
basic skills and forethought is frightening. After all that "we know what we
are doing" talk I guess we can now point and laugh.

~~~
djhworld
They're a charity, they're not obliged to do anything for any one.

They anticipated the launch issues so they brought on two distributors who
have networks and infrastructure in place to distribute these sorts of
products to customers all over the world.

The problem is (and judging by their website design) these distributors
probably don't get that much traffic on a day to day basis. Their products
seem very niche. The distributors were warned and this is what happens.

Don't blame the Raspberry Pi foundation for this.

