“We kept the GPIO connector” … I hope this was a really short discussion with no objections!

I read loads about this and watched several video clips and it looks brilliant. I like the comparison to a Commodore 64 – I’m an Amiga man myself!
Just one thought – why didn’t you add a ‘trap door’ for installing an SSD?
Will you be making an 8Gb version later?
Best regards, Paul.

I was shocked indeed to find out that 3.5mm audio out socket has been removed from the Pi 400 design without caring about those who need that input for their speakers / headphones. It seems Pi is no longer inclusive of people from all walks of life instead gravitating towards premium market.

Got mine – its awesome – thank you Pi team.
https://youtu.be/3aJFM-LA1jQ

I really want one of these now.

The only thing that’s missing is the CSI connector

First off, thanks for a brilliant design. The Raspberry Pi 400 is destined to become an instant classic in computer hardware design. I bought one the minute I saw it on launch day for $77.50 (inclusive of tax, with free delivery) from Cytron Malaysia. Absolutely incredible value for so much computing joy! My unit is scheduled to arrive later today. I can barely wait.

Awesome product, but I want to know where one can get a coffee mug like that!

Thank you for making Pi 400. I also got a C64 in 1986 that got me started with programming, which has an subset of Unix 6th edition cartridge. I like to request for your consideration a 8GB memory edition of Pi 400.

Looking at the teardown photos from Jeff Geerling and Tom’s Hardware, there seems to be sufficient empty space inside the keyboard case to fit a slim M.2 2280 SATA or NVMe enclosure. Specifically, the empty space just to the left of the Gigabit port and BOURNS SM51625L chip. I’m thinking we could Dremel a circular hole through the Kensigton key-socket to allow a USB cable to connect the internal M.2 SSD to the external USB 3.0 socket. Since the SSD enclosure is all metal, if we can get the heatsink-plate to rest over the metal SSD casing, the SSD’s heat can be conducted to the heatsink-plate as well, keeping thermals in check. I don’t mind voiding my warranty just to get an internally mounted SSD in my Raspberry Pi 400.

Why no RTC again? I can understand about not adding a SATA or NVMe slot to the motherboard to keep manufacturing costs down, but surely adding an RTC chip and coin-cell battery would not have blown the cost-envelope of the design? Relying on an internet connection to sync to an NTP server is not too reliable an option, especially in schools or homes located in rural areas outside of broadband coverage. I am curious as to what the thinking was behind omitting an RTC from the RPi 400.

I have been happy with my Raspi4 4GB, but worry that if I go with the newer 64bit OS, the memory will be effectively cut in half due to double width memory addressing. In that regard is there a way for me to keep using 32 bit OS, or should I wait for 8 GB model?
Otherwise, this is an excellent form factor, and good to carry in my bugout bag.

Looking at the early paragraphs there it seems you missed the opportunity to design the keyboard with easy coupling of raspberry pi models. Had you provided several plastic posts, with easily snipped feature to custom fit raspberrypis, and simple usb connectors, even if done via solder pads, then we would have had this integrated form factor a long time ago.
Was there ever a question about full size HDMI, or was the design firmly established on micro size early on?

It would be really nice, if in future revisions you added a header for the internal USB port and a jumper to disable the keyboard controller chip. This would let people add a mechanical keyboard running open firmware, like QMK, easily to the design and re-use the board in a custom case.

My only disappointment with this design is the lack of a full-size HDMI port.

How does $70 convert to £94, because I have a load of dollars to trade at that price.

I want to get some pi 400 to kids at our school who don’t have access to a digital device for learning during lock down. What I can’t find anywhere is: have the designers thought to make the keyboard either waterproof or water resistant? These kids often learn in very cramped conditions at home and if they or siblings knock a glass of orange juice over the keyboard, is that the end of the Pi? Many thanks

The Raspberry Pi 400 motherboard contains a BOURNS SM51625L chip module, which is a Gigabit Ethernet PoE transformer. Does this mean we can power the Raspberry Pi 400 using just PoE cables without adding a PoE HAT?

I’am missing an internal USB-Port (USB-3) to connect an USB-Stick or USB-2-SSD Adapter/SSD
To save the SD-Card.

Thanks for the rundown on the design. I suspect a lot of the “surely you could have …” comments that are arising in this and other articles about the pi 400 underestimate the compliance challenges of putting GHz signals inside a plastic case.

Extreme longshot: is there an FDM or SLA slicer that’ll run on this?

I owe much of where I am in my career today to the Commodore 64 that I received for Christmas in 1984 from my father. I’m delighted to know that another generation of curious developers and engineers will get their start on Christmas morning, 2020.

I love my Pi projects. I had an acorn electron when I was a kid. BBC Basic. Now I’m learning C and Python on Pi 3’s. Such good machines can be made.

I believe that there is demand in Brazil for products like this. It would be incredible to have the option of the Brazilian keyboard. Being imported as keyboard would have a reduction in tax revenue compared to computers. And there are large national stores that could sell easily.

Thank you for Pi 400. Also got C64 for Christmas around that time, with tape recorder. Remember coding Mandelbrot fractal in BASIC that rendered 160×200 picture in 12 hours :-) Also wrote simple number guessing game with SAM reciter, that was big success in our family (computer can talk!). Some later Christmas got 1541 drive (with GEOS disks included). Oh those were the days :-)

Ordered Pi 400 right away but not sure if small laptop wouldn’t be better for kids these days (OLPC idea but done right).

Any chance the keyboard layout would be updated to move the \ key to the space between the backspace an enter keys?
I know everyone has strong opinions on keyboard layouts: this is mine.

Finally! I have been tinkering away at a keyboard encasings for a small TV connected computer and I have to say, at $70 this packs quite a punch! Great work!

I do wish some of your team would spend some time in the developing world, the middle of Uganda, or somewhere in Rural India, China or Brazil, for example, as motivation to make the impossible possible… because the developing world is not only their governments, but vast majorities excluded by them, who arguably have the most to gain from this, because choices are so very limited – a world where the privileged are only getting analogue TV’s this year, for the very first time, where micro HDMI cables are almost impossible to find… and where a micro USB cable will for sure be jammed into this slot, where HDMI is rare, and where USB dongles, even mice and keyboards can take months to arrive… So it is a bit disappointing that billions of already made cables out there will have one more reason to be consigned to an ash heap, the ashes eaten by the livestock, as it goes… but it IS nice to see this.

I would actually love to see Apple transform a possible future Mac mini into something like that. Just a laptop without battery and display lid. But i guess there wouldn’t be GPIO :-)

I’m still not able to understand why not the Compute Module?
it is not about quantity. it is about flexibility and reusing the hardware. what about 2GB/8GB versions of this product. the CM will be reused in many boards and places. it is the concept i believe not the quantity that should shape your design.
i was actually thinking to open a thread in the forum to encourage Pi5 to be only a CM module with 3 boards: mini (replacement of Pi0/PiA), standard (replacement of PiB) and full (dev board). the user will just pick his choice of CM and board. simplifying the process is the best for all options. you already did it with CM and has 32 variants. this is better than trying to have all variants for all boards, we will end with unclear model.
this is just an opinion

A 3.5mm audio jack should of course not be missing.

Very excited to get mine. One comment though, will we be able to get the face and keys in black, as to not show dirt so quickly?

So, next steps are to make one that can contain a CM4 cluster, and an addon case to connect an external gpu?

If it’s all about cost, routing and dimensions, then I don’t understand the decision to have 2 micro-HDMI ports even more. Of course I would like this PC to have CM4, M2, RTC, you name it. But full size HDMI (and one is enough, if you have a space constrains) is a must!

Just another compulsive addition to your comparison with the Commodore 64 – if you adjust the Commodore 64 price for inflation it comes out at $1480 in 2020 pricing – so price ratio is 0.067 !

Give us back our mini AV jack, you evil fruit company!

Will the SBC version of the PI4 also get the new 1.8GHz processor?

Received my new Raspberry Pi 400 today. Man, what a great design. Wow. An absolute delight. RPT really hit it out of the park with this one. Absolutely amazing! I popped a freshly imaged Raspberry Pi OS 2020-10-30 armhf nightly image onto a microSD card (love that push-in to pull out spring loaded action) and did a quick setup. Stock speeds feels snappier than stock RPi 4B, even before overclocking. Took it all the way up to 2350MHz CPU and 750 GPU, with 4kp60=1. Tried 2400MHz and it won’t boot. So 2350MHz is the highest I can coax mine to go. Haven’t had time to run any Stressberry tests yet, but as I am typing this on the RPi 400 in Chromium with 6 other tabs open, the temperature is hovering between 43-45C. While watching a 1080 60p YouTube clip the temp goes up to 49-52C. Booting Twister OS 1.8.5 from a Samsung 860 EVO M.2 500GB SSD (in a Ugreen M.2 SSD enclosure) plugged into the USB 3.0 socket works perfectly. What I find incredible is that the keys don’t even feel all that warm, even the CPU is running at 2.35GHz. That large surface area heatsink-plate is doing a splendid job keeping thermals under control. Marvelous. Simply marvelous. To Simon Martin and the teams who brought this product from concept all through to market, I tip my virtual hat to you all. This product brings plenty of joy and excitement in these trying times. Thank you.

As someone who grew up with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computer in the 80s, this is so wonderfully reminiscent of those days. More power to you, Mr. Martin, and your entire team. I look forward to using mine once the backorder is fulfilled.

I wish this had been announced 2 weeks earlier. I was visiting my sister in law and she saw me playing some retro Gabe’s on my pi4 and she was interested. She asked me if I could build her something so she could play sooner classic games. I put together a pi4 with some retro games and sent it via the mail. She isn’t very technologically adept and struggled a little. If I could have slipped an sd card into the 400 and shipped out off. I think it would have been perfect.

I too got a c64 back in the 80’s. Al my friends were playing on their nes and other consoles. But not me I eyed the c64 and saved up and bought one. Which I grew into the 2nd largest commie bbs system in San Diego. It was a great piece of hardware for the times. Like the pi is now

After 24 hours with this Pi 400 I can declare that I absolutely love it and I am getting behind on other work I have to do, I can’t tear away from it. This thing is an absolute DREAM!

What CAE package do you use to design the schematic and PCB layout?

I have received my 400 and I am very happy with it. The only glaring omission is a plastic or rubber cover for the 40-pin connector.

Looks absolutely lovely. It would be cool if there was a USB out from the keyboard, and a switch, so one could share the keyboard between to systems.

Dear PI Team, thank you for this wonderful home computer in 2020. I grew up with the C64 and it was a big part of my youth. The Raspberry Pi 400 in the colors of the original C64 breadbin would be a dream come true for all fans of the 80s home computers. Please let this dream come true!

Is it possible to install embedded Gentoo on it?

https://raspberrytips.com/gentoo-installation-raspberry-pi/

many tip sites, but many embedded boards do not provide sufficient detail to put other, usable, embedded linux distros like gentoo on the prototypes or hardware that actually ships.

Demo, and I’ll purchase (6)

James

Re. the left handed mouse.
Could you not have just mounted the PCB upside down?

I’m hoping to get one soon, can’t thank you guys enough for all that you do, I don’t know if you’ve seen Perifractic’s review on youtube, he had a friend do some renders with classic computers color schemes (c64, vic20, speccy, cpcs, amiga), and as far as I know, with the injection molds already done, getting new colors released shouldn’t be hard to do. I’m a commodore guy, but if you ever do release alternate colors, I’d get a Spectrum one, looks like the perfect one for the form factor.

What should come as part of the kit, a cheap but hard plastic encased usb extender that attaches to the back for right handed mouse users.

The raspberry pi 400 is about as clever as the Sinclair C5. Look at the plate of spaghetti required. If anyone was using joined up thinking they’d have created a monitor with a USB power supply and a bracket for a conventional pi. Wireless mouse and keyboard and voilà, something really cool, a Mac buster in fact, with a clutter free desk. But there again who said smart people aren’t capable of doing stupid things, eh Clive?

I just ordered mine. This thing is amazing. I built one pi inside a keyboard myself to teach basic to my son on a CRT. lol. The only thing i cannot agree that it’s a good idea to remove is the AV out. :( I will miss that. HATE they removed it from phones now the Pi is going the same way. Don’t understand why. There’s plenty of space on the board, and the PI 4 HAS the Av out. Why removing it ? :(

But does it have RTC? No? Why not? Biggest thing missing from Pi. Especially in this new configuration… :-(

It would be good if one could reprogram the keyboard controller since I would like to add Pause, Super R (Right Windows key), Menu, Enter (on the num pad). Shift+F10 is an alternative to Menu, but doesn’t send the Menu scan code. I think there should be combinations with Fn that makes it possible to generate all scan codes on a pc105 keyboard plus multimedia keys.

It would be a wish that the next version of the official Raspberry Pi Keyboard and Raspberry Pi 400 could generate all scan codes for pc105 even if it is the US version (i.e. pc104), because then I think Fn+Z should generate the key left of Z on a pc105 keyboard. Fn+B could be Pause key ─ it cannot be Fn+P because that’s already – (minus) on the numeric keypad. Fn by itself doesn’t send a scan code. It would also be good if multimedia keys were supported using e.g. Fn+F3 to Fn+F9.

Excellent. I suppose the next step is to make a Raspberry Pi 4000 laptop :)

I totally like this new Pi. But is there a black keyboard version in the works with maybe 8 Gigs? Please do tell.

Your CPU seems to be a new Rev C of the BCM2711, where the 4B uses Rev B. Is there anything in the rev C that made it better for this design? Does it have better thermals?

Firstly great product it looks stunning.
Are you guys going to upgrade the ram to a 8 gig and also make a plan for a m.2 drive then I would definitely buy one.

The only thing we now need is an easy-to-use Linux distro like Linux Mint, which I use almost on a daily basis.

A wireless mouse would be the icing on the cake instead a wired one. I´d rather loosing another usb2.0 port for this. Just for a cleaner desktop experience.

Saw a video online where someone tricked out the keyboard to style like various retro computers. I so want that. Oh, and 8gb in a full size keyboard. Santa?

I really love your stuff and I think it’s cool how you are adding new and new things to the raspberry pi ecosystem but instead of working on a keyboard maybe you guys could work on a raspberry pi 4A <3

Love this, but would really like to see an 8Gb RAM model.

I loved messing around with the Pi 4 4gb. I am very impressed with the pi 400. I am very interested in the accessibility functions of the operating system as I feel this could potentially be a non expensive everyday solution for many visually impaired people.

As RISC OS v 5.28 is available now on Raspberry Pi 4, will it be possible to run it on the Raspberry Pi 400.

With all this board space you still couldn’t fit in the extra 4 traces to make the third USB port 3.0? Really?

Thank you for making the Pi 400! I love keyboard computers and have been hoping for an official Pi Keyboard computer for years now. It’s funny that you mentioned your love of the Commodore 64… Like so many others, that was the first computer that I had regular access too. Earlier this year I modded my (dead) Commodore 64 with a Pi4 and Keyrah C64 keyboard to USB converter. It definitely brings back a lot of memories, but with a boatload of modern functionality. I look forward to getting the Pi 400, as well!

So, is that a ‘user port’s? Will you have a pi-modem cartridge for it? ;-)

I’m amused seeing all the comments comparing it to the C64. As soon as I saw the mention of Commodore in the blog post, the first thing that came to my mind was that they’d obviously named the Pi 400 after the Atari 400.

This is the coolest RPi so far, by far!
My only gripe is the USB-C power cable, which is definitely not suitable for this usage scenario. It’ll just come off and switch off the Pi at the slightest pull of the cable. This is not an issue on standard models, but users move their keyboards all the time.

I read in Elektor Magazine that the EEPROM is left out compared to Raspberry Pi 4 B. Is this because you think the boot code is finished?

I am right handed but have always used my left hand for the mouse. That is because I “have better things to do with my right hand”. Like writing numbers and notes from the screen, etc.
Try it and you will see how much better it works. I have converted many people over the years.

Thanks to PI 400 i went back around 38 years ago when, young engeneer, I started to write program on the Commodor 64. One request why don’t delivery PI 400 using more then one keyboard color ? gray or black could be a good idea to install it in office too.

I’d like to see a trackpoint in the future ?

Just to be “that guy”… why does your title illustration show the Pi 400 on a desk next to two Pi camera boards, that I assume cannot be used with the Pi 400 if it lacks a CSI-2 camera port?

All my friends were playing on their nes and other consoles. But not me I eyed the c64 and saved up and bought one. I grew into the 2nd largest commie bbs system in San Diego. It was a great piece of hardware for the times. Like the pi is now

Kudos on the design. I’m impressed that you managed to create such an effective passive cooling solution. The bit at the end of your post made me smile. Back at the 2010 Rails Conference Robert Martin performed a similar exercise, comparing the laptops and smartphones in the audience to his first love, the PDP-8. It was a machine that was so powerful for the time that he felt “we ruled the world!” By crunching the numbers as you did, he reached the conclusion that computer hardware had progressed 10^25 times. (His talk was primarily a lament at how little software development had improved in the same half century. You can find the lecture on YouTube; Martin is an entertaining speaker.)

I received my Raspberry Pi 400 today and absolutely LOVE it! I too began my computer explorations with a Commodore (Vic 20 in my case), This is such a beautiful design, and wonderful homage to the all-in-one designs that got so many of us started, The keyboard is absolutely perfect! From my perspective you nailed every design choice perfectly with the exception of the 3.5” jack. I hope that can find its way back somehow in a future revision, I have mine connected to dual HDMI displays that unfortunately lack 3.5” output. So for now I’m dealing with crummy built in monitor speakers until I purchase a USB sound card. Still I would rate this computer 10 out of 10. You hit it out of the park with this design. It makes me want to design cool “cartridges” with my 3D printer, SO many ideas :-)

Totally amazed, great product but easy access to sound via a headphone jack is so important for schools. This has the potential to be used with old monitors in schools across the world. But the only way to access sound, out of the box, is to use it with a TV or modern monitor with speakers. That doubles the cost. The world is moving to wireless headphone via Bluetooth, ut managing this in a school would be impossible. Unless you know otherwise!

I want to use the keyboard with a larger sd card. I have tried the latest version of Raspberry IOS but it will not boot. Which software can i use?

You don’t have to be left-handed to prefer the mouse to the left side. (To type with the right hand of course )

Twenty years ago I asked for a low price, low power, ARM-based, desktop computer that ran Linux and RISC OS and had easy access to enable kids and techies to play around with linking the machine to the outside world.
Thank you for delivering. :-)

How did you compute how thick the cooling plate should be? Could the cooling be improved if the plate was thicker or thinner? The keyboard would weigh less if it was thinner, which would be an advantage for e.g. shipping costs.

Where can I get that mug? Love the color…

I’d love to attachable display lid for this- it would make the perfect laptop!

Eye catchy Color and design.Just Love It

Will the 400 be offered in the alternate black/grey color scheme like the official cases?
I understand wanting to have a brand identity, but the white/red color scheme is not to everybody’s taste.

I just love the RPI 400.
If only it had 8GB of RAM, black keys, USB-connectors on the inside of the case, a 20MP camera with four lenses, a trackpad, a headphone jack, or better still, stereo speakers, and a 5,25″ floppy drive. Oh, and why is it so expensive?

To me, this form factor brings back the Sinclair QL. That was the first to break the 16-bit address space barrier with a Motorola 16000-series processor (the first Apples pre-Mac used them). The QL had expansion too, at the end: there were dual-floppy-disk, and hard-disk adapters to take the place of the fiddly microdrives. They also failed badly with their keyboard connection: a fragile film edge-connector. Info was published for rewiring a PC keyboard, but I never got that far. Monitors were a strange aspect ratio too.
I had 2 of them: they were fun and a good learning exercise trying to overcome those fails, but a flop otherwise.
I wonder if anyone still has a functional unit to benchmark?

I’m just kind of angry that there wasn’t any previous mention of this, because I bought my Pi just a few months ago, and I definitely could’ve waited. Still, the original board still has some advantages over this one.

Nice, but not quite there for me. If you bring out an updated version in the future, please consider:
1: 8GB RAM version
2: Full-size HDMI ports (at least ONE of them full-size)
3: m.2 SATA support
4: A matching wireless/BT mouse

Oh, one other thing – I thing it should come with a cap/cover for the expansion header-slot. My mate almost fried his shiny new Pi 400 when he nearly turned it one with a paper-clip lodged in between the pins (courtesy of his 5 year old!).

When, It will be available in India?

I am Japanese. English may be a little strange. Excuse me

This blog was interesting. I got a good idea of the raspberry pi400. I’m looking forward to the next post.

Like the pi 4 and 400
much better as pi 3b+ as desktop pc (no more problems with chromium)
do NOT like the text on pi400 keyboard
the print is not centered on the keys

This is missing a very important thing. The 3.5mm jack. For those of us who are blind. This would have been an instant accessible computer. Now how ever it makes it very difficult. Not impossible but difficult to setup with a headset out of the box. It can be setup with braille pretty good but for those of us who use audio out as our monitor and do not have an HDMI monitor with speakers this becomes hard to get working. It would not have been that hard to run a 3.5 mm jack. To bad.

would be cool to have kensington locks on both sides, just in case someone wants to attach something using them

I wish the keyboard was more like the C64. I have the keyboard that I purchased with the kit with the 4B 4GB model, and I have to hit the [end] key hard to get it to work. I guess you couldn’t do much better for the price but I think I probably won’t buy a 400. I have a 4B 4GB and a 4B 8GB with different metal cases.

Have you guys noticed some connectors under the pcb? I believe hat comes straight from the USB controller. What do you guys think about it. Is it PCIe?

Curious why a built-in trackpad or pointing stick wasn’t considered? Can people realistically use this product without a mouse?

Four years of development and you forget the audio connector. The most basic thing. This degrades the whole device. Depressing. The user must buy additional peripherals such as HDMI VGA audio reduction or USB AUDIO and lose the USB port. HDMI audio has very poor software support and is a problem to get up and running. The design of the device is good, but this one with the sound is miserable.

I’m fairly new to the Raspberry Pi bandwagon, but I guess its never too late. I liked the overall design and the concept used. However, just like someone mentioned above. Having a wireless mouse, would have been the icing on the cake.

Nest Raspberry Pi 4 will add more cool features I think. I have read all comments and I found how much people care about the Raspberry Pi 4. When it will be available at India?

This blog was interesting. I got a good idea of the raspberry pi400. I’m looking forward to the next post.
Would be cool to have kensington locks on both sides, just in case someone wants to attach something using them.

Curious why a built-in trackpad or pointing stick wasn’t considered? Nest Raspberry Pi 4 will add more cool features I think. I liked the overall design and the concept used.

i have seen clips from youtube someone tricked out the keyboard to style like various retro computers. I so want that. Oh, and 8gb in a full size keyboard. that would be dream come true.