Raspberry Pi is the realised dream of a small, cheap, hackable computer that will work anywhere in the world. But getting there wasn’t an easy ride, writes co-founder Pete Lomas

• The plan was to build 1,000 units at $36 each and sell them for $35. There’s a reason it’s a charity, not a company
• Three weeks before launch, demand was above the estimated 1,000 units, to the tune of 200,000.
• People had invested considerable sums of money in Raspberry Pi. The original idea was to have the hardware and software be totally open so anybody could hack it. But open also means copyable, and that would have meant investors potentially never getting their return.
• To overcome this, the designers published the schematics early on, but waited a while before releasing the Bill of Materials and physical PCB design.
• The project created 30 manufacturing jobs in the UK.

Read more in this mildly technical article; about what different groups were asking for in the design, why the project was saved by a laser making hair size holes, and how 7 year olds are getting involved over here

Source: Wired