Woot! A definite date!. There's also a datasheet for the BCM SoC. It looks like this is really just around the corner.

Delayed yet again. Supposedly the first batch were to ship today:

Well, the fact that they have been suffering from constant delays doesn't mean they're a hoax
If they were, why would they be creating functional beta boards, creating Linux images for running on the device. And these recent delays aren't necessarily their fault: they haven't promised any ship date, they just like to keep people informed with the last development news (and the development news include... internal shipping delays).

Note that "today or first thing Monday" is not when the boards will be able for people to buy, but when they will arrive from China (where the factory is, unfortunately as they said, manufacturing in UK would increase the price a lot) to UK.

But in fact, they started promising the boards would be ready for buying in the end of October last year... look at what date it is. In my opinion, they got much more people interested on the project than they originally thought, and since they want to make sure everything goes alright, they are slowly making things in a larger scale.

Actually, there seem to have been a lot more downloads of Linux images for the Pi than boards on the first batch: 10K boards made, and 12K downloads (from some unofficial numbers I've read). I host two download mirrors of their software and I can confirm I got at least seven downloads of a 800MB file in just two days (multiply that for lots of servers spread around the world, plus torrent...).
Because of this interest in the Pi, I'm sure I won't get a board from the first batch (even because these might have bugs/unexpected features).

On their twitter, the project just announced they would be switching their webpage to a static page next Wednesday, so their "servers wouldn't melt" So that might mean they are going to release Raspberry Pi next Wednesday...

Yes, we know that they're not a hoax. The title of this topic comes from when we first heard about the project many, many months ago and it sounded impossible. I don't doubt at this point that I'll be getting my hands on a bunch of them.

I'll be up, and I'll sure to be able to get one, but I don't know if I should just get the first batch board. I think I will, at $25-$35. I don't know if they are selling the A or B board, though. If they are selling B, I'll buy that one.

They said that they're starting with the B boards, since more people seem to want that, and worrying about large-scale production of the A boards later. I see no reason not to jump on the first batch and live with the inevitable problems that will appear, at that price point. That's assuming I manage to get one at all, of course.

I'm just glad the time is reasonable, and not in the middle of one of my classes.

EDIT: Looks like both the store and the site are down. The main site is down, the store just has what seems to be a static page.

I have one on preorder now. FYI they said the A version now has 256 MB of ram, just like B, so now the only difference is the Ethernet and the extra USB.

Yes indeed. Check out Forty-Two's "Raspberry Pi Released" thread, which also draws content from Hackaday's coverage. It looks to me like I'm going to have to wait a few months anyway.

Actually, they said that since they switched to Farnell and RS, they should be able to produce higher volume outputs than they previously thought, so maybe it won't be as long of a wait as you think!

I hope so, that would be great. I was all set to preorder from Newark until I saw that I needed my CC info and couldn't use Paypal, at which point I decided to wait.