The foundation behind the Raspberry Pi have reported that, due to a manufacturing fault, the first run of the mini computers has been delayed.

For the Ethernet connectivity to work at all, the jacks need to have integrated magnetics, but the manufacturers used non-magnetic jacks by mistake.

Although the Foundation reported that the problem is "very minor" and the first batch should go out as expected, the timing of further batches could be affected while the manufacturers hunt for the right hardware.

The Raspberry Pi PC, which went on sale on Wednesday for a paltry £22, sold out within hours of its launch.

The bare-bones computer, which simply appears as a motherboard with USB and SD ports and without any protective casing, can be connected to a TV, display, keyboard and mouse aims to assist children with learning programming skills.

The Linux-based, credit card-sized device caused a huge stir when it arrived toting a 700MHz processor and 256MB of RAM and is capable of playing 1080p HD video and running power-hungry games.

Stocks of the device, which also comes packing an Ethernet port, will be replenished next month, while an even cheaper version of the device, with less RAM and sans the Ethernet port will also go on sale soon.

The stripped-down and practically indestructible gadget aims to wean kids off messing around on Facebook and Twitter and recapture the days when British schoolchildren learned programming on Spectrum and Commodore computers.

Source: Zdnet