After passing the 10 million sales mark, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has finally released an official starter kit for its low cost microcomputer.
Raspberry Pi Starter Kit
According to the Raspberry Pi Foundation's official blog, the non-profit organization has released a premium bundle for the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, complete with cables, keyboard and optical mouse. A screen is the only element still missing to create a full-fledged computer.
Users that are interested in the official Pi starter can order it online in the U.K. from the Foundation's distributors RS Components and element14. The Raspberry Pi starter kit costs £99 (+VAT). In markets located in the rest of the world sales are expected to open up over the next few weeks.
According to Tech Crunch, for the Foundation that created the original Raspberry Pi the starter kit is something of a full revolution. The concept behind the Raspberry Pi was created with the intention of inspiring students to learn programming by messing around with wires and cables rather than being handed a plug and play box.
When the Raspberry Pi launched back in 2012, it was hardly the first single-board computer (SBC). The microcomputer wasn't even the only popular one among hobbyists, according to Slash Gear. But when interest in computers and programming started to grow, the popularity of the Raspberry Pi microcomputers started to grow as well.
With more than 10 million of its single board Pi microcomputers sold four and a half years later, the Raspberry Pi Foundation considered that it's time to put a cherry on top of their project with the white starter kit. The market for Pi will surely accommodate a premium bundle that, while continuing to support expanding access to computing in developing markets, is most likely to appeal to gizmo lovers in the Western world.
The official Pi starter kit includes an official case, a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, an 8GB NOOBS SD card, An official 1m HDMI cable, an official 2.5A multi-region power supply, a keyboard with high-quality scissor-switch action, an optical mouse and a copy of Adventures in Raspberry Pi Foundation Edition.
