Answering to the cries of tinkerers worldwide, the Raspberry Pi foundation today announced you'll be able to get their credit card sized computer with double the amount of RAM. But rather than launching a new and more expensive model they'll just tweak the current one and keep the $35 price tag.

The revised board will feature 512MB of RAM in addition to all other elements of the Raspberry Pi Model B, including the same Broadcom processor, two USB ports, HDMI-out, an SD card slot and an Ethernet port.

Requests for a memory upgrade have been among "the most common suggestions" the foundation has received since it launched the Pi. The extra memory will be useful for those who want to use the Pi as a general-purpose computer, with multiple large applications running concurrently, and it should enable higher performance applications or embedded use cases to run smoothly.

Customers with an outstanding order for the Model B will receive the upgraded version in place of the original 256MB model they ordered ordered. Units should start arriving in customers' hands today, and a firmware upgrade will be made available in the next couple of days to enable access to the additional memory.

Originally, the Raspberry Pi Foundation had set out with the idea to reignite programming in schools with a cheap ($25-$35), compact computing platform that kids could buy themselves. But despite targeting students, the foundation's tiny computer quickly captured the imaginations of DIYers worldwide. We had the chance to chat with Eben Upton back in May about this non-profit project born in the UK.