Raspberry Pi Zero: The first computer to be used as a magazine free gift

Sales of The MagPi, the in-house magazine for the Raspberry Pi Foundation, have been rocketing since it decided to give away a Raspberry Pi Zero with each copy of the December 2015 issue, the first time a computer has been used in this way.

The computer is the new Raspberry Pi Zero, the smallest and cheapest model produced by the company, which usually retails at £4. The device, which is manufactured in Wales, measures just 6.5cm by 3cm, but despite its small size it is a fully functioning single-board computer complete with 1GHz core speed, a Broadcom application processor, a micro-SD card slot, mini-HDMI socket, micro-USB sockets for data and power and 512MB memory.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a not-for-profit initiative which was created with the aim of encouraging schoolchildren to take up coding. Ebon Upton, one of the co-founders, was interviewed by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers’ PE Magazine and explained: “we created Raspberry Pi Zero as part of our mission to ensure that cost is never a barrier to access to open, programmable, computer hardware. We expect it to be used as an entry-level general-purpose computer, and as a component in educational projects in robotics and IoT applications. The MagPi team put an enormous amount of effort into putting the bundle together, and we’re very proud to have been the first people to do this.”

Reports suggest that over 80 per cent of copies of The MagPi were sold from newsagents within a day of the announcement of the free gift and online sales have been frantic. More copies are being printed and Upton said that several tens of thousands of units have been manufactured but they expect “demand to outstrip supply for the next little while”.