The Raspberry Pi is now the third best-selling general purpose computer of all time, MagPi magazine says, edging out the Commodore 64 in the all-time rankings. Over 12.5 million DIY boards have been shifted in the last five years.

The top two in the list are, as you might expect, the PC and the Mac - but even if the Raspberry Pi has little hope of ever overtaking those two computing juggernauts, it's still a huge achievement for the basic little system.

We've been consistently impressed with the kit that the Raspberry Pi Foundation has put out since the first board was launched back in 2012. A total of eight different variations have been released since then, with tweaks made to the specs and on-board capabilities, and the 10 million sales milestone was reached last September.

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The Pis have it

The Raspberry Pi Model 3 launched last year is the best-selling edition of the computer, according to official sources, accounting for around a third of all Pis sold. The latest Pi Zero W board, meanwhile, sold 10,000 units in its first four days.

"Outselling the Commodore 64 cements Raspberry Pi in the annals of history," says MagPi magazine, although there are conflicting reports about how many Commodore 64s have actually be sold. "Not bad considering the original plan was to produce between 10 and 20,000 boards."

It's now hard to imagine the computing landscape without the Raspberry Pi and other basic boards like it, giving system builders and electronics DIYers the foundations to put together anything from a CCTV camera to a retro games console.