The Raspberry Pi Foundation hopes to have a new piece of hardware in the market by the end of 2014 or beginning of 2015.

It’s been a long time coming, but Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton has finally announced plans to release a portable touchscreen display for the budget single board mini-PC.

It obviously has a lot of applications, but the simplest way to describe it is that it’s now possible to turn your Raspberry Pi into a (rather bulky) tablet.

Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt, Upton showed off a prototype of the actual display, a VGA seven-inch capacitive touch panel which can be connected to the Raspberry Pi for any Pi-powered application that users might have in mind.

The Raspberry Pi has been a runaway success since its launch in 2012, with over four million devices sold. Initially, it was intended as a tool to help children learn the basics about computers and coding, and to promote computer science in schools; but has since become popular among the developer community to power independent computing and creative projects.

Upton also spoke about an independent company that’s been building products based on the Pi Model B+, called the Pi Top; a 3D-printed laptop powered by the Raspberry Pi.

“The cool thing is these guys are nothing to do with Raspberry Pi,” said Upton. “One of a large number of different groups of people who have taken the Pi and [built something with it]. This is on Indiegogo at the moment.”

Source: TechCrunch