As a result, in the home-theater world, a 36-inch line-doubled television with a fully featured computer priced at $4,999 would actually be considered a bargain.

National and Cyrix said they would combine their technologies to produce chips for personal computers priced under $500 and other small devices.

Analysts attributed much of that drop to I.B.M.'s failure to foresee the rise of computers priced under $1,000.

In the Arimaa Challenge, the rules reject powerful or custom-made computers priced over $1,000.

Bob Anderson posts a letter to ABC Computers ordering a specific computer priced at £1,500.

AMD, whose gain was largely the result of a 180 percent jump in the sale of computers priced under $1,000, has recently made significant inroads with computer makers.

Strong sellers for the company were computers priced at less than $1,000, digital cameras and new video-game software, he said.

Low-end computers, priced under $1,000, will make their way into the homes of many shoppers, from retirees and other first-time buyers to families adding a model exclusively for the children.

In one, Dell's laptop computer, priced at $3,899, is dubbed 'the lap of luxury'; Compaq's equivalent, at $6,799, the 'lap of lunacy'.

But hey, this is a computer designed and priced for consumers, not for business users, who would be better served by the more expensive Powerbook G3 models.