OK, so you have this theory that they did it on purpose, in order to prevent you from buying a Pi from the first batch. Perhaps you are correct, but it seems an awful lot of trouble just to harm you. Do they have very serious reasons to hate you?

From your last message it seems you have been following Raspberry Pi on Twitter. If this is so, I am really amazed that you didn't get the meaning of "Set your alarm clock". Every one else did. It is clear that the agreement between the foundation and the distributors (Farnell and RS components) prevented the foundation from pre-announcing the sale. So they did the best they could: They made it clear, without explicitly saying it.

I also did not get a mail. Since Liz and the rest of the foundation have no reason to hate me, I assume this was a technical glitch, instead of a conspiracy against me. But then again, perhaps I was collateral damage of the conspiracy against YOU...

Of course, in spite of the fact that I didn't get the mail, I had read in advance the site announcement, and on the two last days was following the twitter posts. So I knew exactly what was going to happen on Feb 29, 6:00 GMT. I did lose some sleep, spent around 3 hours trying to order through the two broken sites, and just may have been successful. My impression is that the foundation handled this in a very professional way, in spite of the fact that they are volunteers, not professionals. On the other hand, the distributors clearly messed up. Seems they didn't take seriously the warnings about the enormous traffic. On the Farnell site, I once managed to get a pi into my shopping basket, only to get a message that there was no price for this item, and have the sale aborted (this was, if I remember correctly, around 6:15-6:30). Then I tried the French Farnel site, only to find that it was impossible to preorder with a credit card. Then finally, after more than an hour, I found out that I should try to order through Farnel - export (I live in Greece). Now if the foundation had known in advance, and had the funds, they would have ordered a first batch of 200.000, and everything would have been fine. Only, as we say in Greece, if my grandmother had weels, she would have been a bicycle.

Seriously now, there were 10.000 pis in the first batch, and more than ten times as much people who wanted them. There is no way on Earth they could satisfy everyone. No matter what they did, there would be more than 100.000 people left out of the first batch. This is what happened. Most of those who didn't make it accepted this gracefully. I assume it was inevitable that there would be one or two who wouldn't.

They just don't warned me(and all others in the world) about this facts:

1) Selling date

2) Where to buy (they even deceived about raspberrypi.com)

Last info about boards was "we are wating them from factory and will test them then sell"... So as for me they culd'nt sell boards without first testing them... They was clear about preorders... They say that there wuld not be preorders... But now they sold them by preorder(total trickery)!!!!

They just made it all in very last moment for some NOT PREDICTABLE purpose... may be you are right about their NDA with farnell, but this is not excuse for them...

I'm reading twitter now just post factum to see what was said there and it seems that it was alot more information there(discrimination)!

PS: I know that demand is higher than availabily but i dont even get a chance! RasPi fundation deprived me...................

PPS: Let's see what wuld happend if they warned all about sell date in 1 week... All users wuld start registering on farnell and wuld created real traffic.... Farnell admins wuld then have enaugh time to prepare servers for selling... All win.... Users wuld prepare their accounts and servers wuld be prepared for realy high traffic... ALL WIN!!!!!!!!!! So here is the question why wuld someone hide selling date from people!!!!!!!! Totaly unpredictable!!!! trickery beheviour!!!!!

So raspi is not for kids??? Ok... another discrimination...

Well put DaddyW.

If Yurly sat down for a moment and thought carefully, they did say in the forums that they were testing BEFORE they left the factory.

Let me explain ...Why would you want to ship all the way to UK, then test and reject any duds. You would also need the factory to gear up again to manufature.

Re the distributors not having stock...well again why would you ship to the UK, then have to distribute to the various countries based on orders?

You me and the rest of the forum are technically minded, but the logistics side of the distributors probably have absolutely no idea what a RaspberryPi is (apart from something you eat), and are moving truckloads of goods every single day.

The damn catalogue for Element14 is at least two reams of A4, so have a guess how many individual items that is.

I suggest you leave your computer alone for an a hour or two, go for a walk, take the chill pill, or something because this ranting isn't going to get one any quicker.

If you still can't settle, then think about this.

What would happen if the charity had ordered 100,000 (say $20USD each = $2million USD) and they didn't sell so well.

The money came from their OWN pockets, and the factory sure wasn't going to give a credit or pay when you can.

So do yourself a favour and end your frustration by settling down, waiting like us older people, and have a more relaxing day, you sound like you need it.

Mark

I just can't leave this like that... You either don't want to understand what i'm talking about or just trolling...

so 1 by 1:

Logistics:

RasPi said that they will shipping orders form the UK. So yes that was their plan, to sell from their own shop and ship from UK!

Testing:

There is so many info in their forum one can't read it all... I read all news and once their site will start functioning normaly i can post here their direct words about testing and selling... From what can i remember they wrote something like this: "We will come for boards by plane and will ensure that there wuld be no delay. And after we test them we will start selling."

Pre-order:

They was clear about no pre-order and that they have enough money for all their neads! So please dont say that this is alot of money and bla bla bla.. They culd do preorder from the start and rise money for 100k order... But this is not question of the money... This is about how much you lose when you get error in shematics etc.

In all 3 cases fundation changed all prior known information in a very last moment and didn't warned the community... and if you don't see it you are blind!

PS: Why wuld someone grownup go to the personal with kid(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem)

No I'm not trolling, I've got better things in life to do.

Don't bother posting the quotes.

Like I said earlier, take the chill pill, and find something else to do.

Hanging onto this sort of thing can be detremental to your health, and if don't believe me, go ask anyone what causes stomach ulcers.

Its done so unless you have a time machine, it can't be undone.

If you really have so much energy, devote some time to useful stuff that supports the charity original purpose, ie making programming available.

Make some tutorials or other material that people can use, rather than pointing out what they shouldn't have done.

Mark

Re the personal bit (I assume that it was because of an earlier poster...I didn't mention 'kid').

As I read it, its a reference to the behaviour, not the fact.

Anyone can be accused of acting in a particular manner, regardless of their age (or gender).

Also re-reading some of your posts, I would be careful, as I'm not sure all the quotes are entirely accurate.

(Unfortunately unless they were saved, its hard to check at the moment)

Thank you for your care about my health. =) I'm fine... And i don't get this so close...

Some citations:

"You will be able to buy a Raspberry Pi from the end of February, from this website."

"We have no plans for preorders."

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/633

"The good news is that this finally means we have a date for the first batch: the boards will be finished on February 20. Eben and I may be going to China to make sure that the boards can be brought up properly for that date if necessary. We’ll be airfreighting them to the UK immediately, so you should be able to buy them before the end of the month."

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/615

"Althrugh we are still waiting units to arrive from China you can start buying Raspberry Pi today."

Static page wich are gone now.

So... trickery... in the very last moment...

I didn't follow the Raspberry Pi outside of "Hey that's cool.  I'll add this to favorites."

Then I read this message.

Ladies and gentlemen, set your alarms!

Posted on February 27, 2012 by eben

The Raspberry Pi Foundation will be making a big (and very positive) announcement that just might interest you at 0600h GMT on Wednesday 29 February 2012. Come towww.raspberrypi.org to find out what’s going on.

GOLLY GEE that was hard to plan for.  Life lesson, plan ahead and keep your head on a swivel.

I sympathise with your frustration.I was also unable to buy a RPi, despite spending a few hours trying online at the appointed hour.  For what it's worth, from my point of view the RPi communications were not intentionally misleading. The had a plan which they described, but they changed their plans at the last minute (understandably, and I think for the better long-term, although this is not yet apparent) and were prohibited by their vendor agreements from publicly explaining the details in advance. And they had some miscommunications on Twitter also, after the fact, due to vendors not being on the same page with them (literally and metaphorically).

FWIW, the educational package "RPi for kids" release is planned to have a case included, and more software, and it doesn't start until this Fall (? -anyway later). The initial board run is for the hardy hackers who are willing to blaze their own trail and put up with various inconveniences.

For the vast majority of us, like me, who were NOT able to buy a RPi yet, you can still get started trying some things out in a virtual environment. See for example:

http://elinux.org/RPi_Distributions

http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/Raspberry_Pi_Fedora_Remix

http://russelldavis.org/2012/01/27/setting-up-a-vm-for-raspberry-pi-development-using-virtualbox-scratchbox2-qemu-part-1/

http://russelldavis.org/2012/01/31/additional-raspberry-pi-vm-information/