Getting Started With The Raspberry Pi Is Not As Easy As Pie

The super low cost computer called the Raspberry Pi is mind-blowing and awesome. As TechCrunch recently reported, the $25 to $35 mini computer on a circuit board is designed to give kids around the globe an easy way to learn computer programming. But the Raspberry Pi is not like a computer you get from Apple or pickup at the local Best Buy. It’s not as simple as plug and play. It takes a bit of extra work and time. And you need to be a hacker before you can get it working.

I got my hands on one of the 400,000 units that have been sold. The first thing I noticed is the Raspberry Pi is sold with no accessories. You get just the circuit board as seen above, without any of the connections. The Raspberry Pi Foundation, the British-based not-for-profit charity that makes the computer, says it wants to keep the price down, perhaps even $20 one day. But to keep the price down, they had to make some hard choices about what hardware and interfaces to include.