树莓派电脑：售价35美元，销量超千万

树莓派已经成为计算机领域一个相当突出的现象。这种简易电脑连机箱都没有，就更不用说软件了。但实际情况证明，这款成本只有35美元的产品备受孩子们和动手爱好者青睐。

实际上，由于非常热门，设在英国的树莓派基金会现已售出了1000万台树莓派电脑。

正如树莓派之父埃本·阿普顿上周四在博客中所说，他们最初的打算只是想让更多人申请到剑桥大学的计算机专业读书。

阿普顿写道：“当时我们觉得，如果运气好，这款产品的总销量也许能达到1万台。我们根本没指望成年人来使用它，也没期望在商业上取得成功，当然更不会想到四年后树莓派在英国的日产量会达到数万台，而且销往世界各地。”

当然，当时也许没有明确迹象显示树莓派的崛起会和嵌入式计算的爆发性增长同步，甚至对后者起了推动作用。

接入互联网的不光是各种各样的常规物品，众多新型设备也实现了联网，比如无人机和可穿戴设备。和Arduino以及Adafruit等平台一样，实践证明树莓派计算机非常有用，对初创型企业来说是这样，对想以微成本把这些领域的新点子变成原型产品的业余爱好者来说同样如此。

对许多普通人来说，树莓派的作用也非常之大。今年早些时候，第三个版本的树莓派终于集成了Wi-Fi和蓝牙功能，从而不再需要为了无线通信而额外购买硬件，也让它成为更可行的家庭个人电脑取代品。

这款产品的成功不仅有利于树莓派基金会。它还占树莓派约一半产量的英国制造商Premier Farnell成为诱人的收购目标。电子元件经销企业安富利上周四表示，美国监管部门已经同意它斥资9.07亿美元收购Premier Farnell。

同时，树莓派基金会将部分销售款用于资助为儿童和教师开设的编程课程。

阿普顿写道：“大家可以想象得到，能够宣布树莓派电脑在过去四年半里的销量高达1000万台是一种多么奇怪的感觉。感谢各位，我们的成果比我们最狂野的想象高了三个数量级，而这还仅仅是个开始。”

为庆祝1000万台销量这个里程碑，该基金会宣布推出一款价格99英镑（132美元）的初学者套餐，其中包括了一些人们往往会添加在核心部件之上的东西，比如HDMI连接线、鼠标、键盘、电源、一张SD卡（用于存储免费下载的Linux操作系统）以及一个机箱。噢，对了，还有一本旨在帮助较年轻用户上手的指导书。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：詹妮

The Raspberry Pi is quite a phenomenon in the computing world—a stripped-down computer that doesn’t even come with a case, let alone software, but that costs just $35 and has proven a hit with kids and other tinkerers.

Such a hit, in fact, that the U.K.-based Raspberry Pi Foundation has now sold 10 million of the things.

As Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton noted in a Thursday blog post, the original idea was just to get more people applying to study computer science at the University of Cambridge.

“At the time, we thought our lifetime volumes might amount to ten thousand units—if we were lucky,” Upton wrote. “There was no expectation that adults would use Raspberry Pi, no expectation of commercial success, and certainly no expectation that four years later we would be manufacturing tens of thousands of units a day in the UK, and exporting Raspberry Pi all over the world.”

Of course, at the time it may not have been apparent that the rise of the Raspberry Pi would coincide with—and perhaps even help fuel—the explosion in embedded computing.

Not only are all sorts of regular devices becoming connected to the Internet, but a variety of new device types have appeared, such as drones and wearable computers. Along with platforms such as Arduino and Adafruit, Raspberry Pi computers have proven very useful to startups and hobbyists that want to prototype new ideas in such areas at minimal expense.

The Pi is perfectly usable for a lot of regular people too. Earlier this year, version 3 of the Raspberry Pi finallyintegrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth functionality, removing the need to buy extra dongles for wireless connectivity and making it a more viable PC replacement for people’s living rooms.

The device’s success has not just been good for the foundation that’s behind it. It also helped make Premier Farnell, the U.K. firm that distributes about half of the Raspberry Pi units, an attractive takeover target—component firm Avnet said Thursday that U.S. regulators had cleared its $907 million acquisition of the distributor.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation uses some of the proceeds of sales to fund coding courses for kids and teachers.

“You can imagine how strange it feels to be able to announce that over the last four and a half years we’ve sold a grand total of ten million Raspberry Pis,” Upton wrote. “Thanks to you, we’ve beaten our wildest dreams by three orders of magnitude, and we’re only just getting started.”

To celebrate the 10-million-sold milestone, the foundation announced a £99 ($132) starter kit that comes with some of the add-ons that people tend to buy for the core product—am HDMI cable, a mouse and keyboard, a power supply, an SD card for the free downloadable Linux operating system, and a case. Oh, and an educational book aimed at helping younger users get started.