If you follow the computer industry trade press at all, you probably know that PC clone computer manufacturers have a serious problem. Fierce competition has forced the price of a computer so low that the per unit profit is tiny. This means that if they want to make money, manufacturers have to sell lots and lots of computers. Since just about every business that has a use for a PC has one by now, and since there is a large segment of the population who have no interest in spending a thousand dollars on a device that may or may not work right at all and (unless it's running Linux) will certainly not work right on a reliable basis, this means that in order to stay in business, computer manufacturers need to convince people that PC's are disposable objects and that the thing to do is buy a new one every two or three years.

The difficulty is that most of the people with less money than sense are not heeding the industry's call to trash a thousand dollar investment every two years just because something better is now available. So what if it doesn't have USB, the thing still runs Myst and Wordperfect just fine. This is obviously an intolerable situation. A way must be found immediately to force consumers to buy more computers more often and to pay more for them as well.

In addition to this, the patriarchy has a serious problem; while most geeks are still male, girls and women are starting to use and understand computers in large numbers. Soon yet another bastion of male privilege will be wearing petticoats. This is obviously an intolerable situation also. A way must be found to prevent girls from losing their femininity through overexposure to technology. God forbid we should have bevies of girl geeks demanding equal bathroom space on polytechnic campuses across the nation.

Well, in the proud tradition of people like Bill Shatner and Pamela Anderson, a smart Canadian entrepreneur has finally solved both these problems in one fell swoop. Every week about a kilogram of waste paper gets stuffed in our mailbox in the guise of advertising flyers. Recently, one caught my eye for Patriot computers, "Canada's computer company."

But Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without something special for the little ones, so Patriot offers, for only $22.50 per month, two children's computer packages: a "Hot Wheels computer designed specially for boys" and a "Barbie computer designed specially for girls."

Nowhere in the ad does it give shipping costs for these kid's computers, and a visit to the website shows why: if I was charging $150 for shipping a single printerless PC I'd be ashamed to admit it too. Especially if I was only charging $100 to ship a more expensive grown-up's PC with a bundled printer. Somehow I doubt the actual postage cost is anywhere near that.

But the ad doesn't mention the gouging you'll take on shipping, only that no payments are due for three months. Interest accrues during that time, of course, but oddly enough the interest rate in the flyer is printed extremely small down at the bottom -- 27.5% annually. Although reading the details nearly blinded me, I was also able to determine that the monthly payment is only about two to five dollars more than the monthly interest charges. So if you should be so unlucky to buy something from these loan sharks, you'll be sending money to them for a long, long, long time.

I have to hand it to their marketing department. If you can't make money with a superior product at a lower price, then gull lower middle class parents into buying a computer for their kids and get your profit through old fashioned usury.

But how does this convince consumers to buy more computers more often, you ask. Well, you haven't seen the boys and girls computers yet. Both computers have identical guts, but the Hot Wheels version is navy blue with bright yellow-red "fire" accents at the base of the speakers, case, monitor, and on the mouse pad, wrist rest, and mouse. It comes with a steering wheel/footpedal game controller in a similar color scheme.

The Barbie computer is surprisingly enough not pink, but silver all over, with pink, purple, and greenish yellow stylized daisy-like flower designs at the base and on the mouse, etc. It comes with a Barbie digital camera (girls can't drive, it seems).

My partner, an F1 fan, tells me she prefers the Hot Wheels computer.

Gender stereotyping, anyone? The Barbie computer appears to the left, the Hot Wheels to the right (and you thought it was the other way around, didn't you?). As usual with advertisments, the products pictured are smaller than they appear. You're seeing 17 inch monitors, but for the advertised price the computers only come with 15 inch monitors and stingy, 90 day, "return to factory if it breaks" warranties. Patriot cut no corners when it came to their profit margin on these machines.

Clearly, these are computers that an eight or ten year old will go absolutely mental over, but two or three years later the same child will be unable to look at her/his computer without thinking that they would rather die than have their friends lay eyes on it, and will insist to their parents that they get them a less embarrassing computer. I have to hand it to Patriot's marketing department, this is sheer genius.

But the really interesting thing about these computers is the bundled software that comes with them. Despite the fact that in my experience the more software you install on a windows 9x machine at one time the more often it will crash, both the boys and girls computers come with twenty preinstalled software titles. There's no printed list in the ad, so unless you surf to the www.hotwheelspc.com or the www.barbiepc.com web sites, you have to go by the tiny reproductions of the retail software box covers in the ad.

I suppose people who don't already have a computer just have look at the teeny tiny pictures in the flyer and guess what kinds of programs their kids will be getting.

As a side note, just as you cannot buy a hamburger at McDonald's that looks anything like the photographs of burgers you see in McDonald's ads, you do not get the retail software boxes with the computer, but only the CD's and, if you are lucky, some kind of documentation. But I digress.

Certain programs come on both machines. Both boys and girls receive

• "Cyber Patrol."
  We mustn't let Johnny or Sally look at nekkid pictures or web sites about perverts, after all.
• "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing."
  I guess the computer has made typing a needed skill for both sexes now, although you can be sure that no red-blooded, Hot Wheels computer owning boy is going to end up as a secretary... oddly enough, this is the adult version of the title, despite the fact that Patriot's "Computers 4 Families" bundle comes with a version of the program designed for children.
• A trio of reference works:
  • "Compton's encyclopedia 2000 standard"
  • "Compton's 3d world atlas deluxe"
  • "National geographic-- the 90's"
  With these, Sally and Johnny will be able to plagiarize material for all their school reports well into the next century.
• "Ultimate Writing & Creativity Center."
  Doesn't it give you a warm and fuzzy feeling to realize that even the most backward of children can unlock their vast creative potential and grow up to become bestselling authors if only their parents would buy them a computer? Me neither. One Steven King is more than enough. We can only hope that the public school system continues to do an excellent job of mercilessly grinding the creative spark out of 99% of its inmates long before graduation.
• "Math workshop."
  Everyone knows that computers can magically boost a child's grades.
• "MYST."
  I don't understand this one either.

Cognitive dissonance here... Somehow I don't think Myst will be enthralling to a child young enough to think that a Hot Wheels or Barbie themed computer is neat. Call me uncool (I've never played Myst and know it only by report), but somehow it doesn't strike me that Myst and "Barbie Totally Tattoos" (or "Hot Wheels Tattoo designer") are, shall we say, aimed at the same age group. Although if the child who is given one of these computers does manage to enjoy Myst, I suspect that any improvement in their math scores or in their overall level of creativity will be more than offset by the number of homework assignments that they don't complete because they have been playing Myst instead.

So, that's eight out of twenty software titles in common. Then we have the parallel Barbie and Hot Wheels tattoo programs mentioned above (I seem to remember a time when tattoos were rather risque and not at all something you would want your child to be playing at, but then I'm 31 and am probably an old fogey in such matters).

After that things start to diverge. Aspiring automotive engineers get to create their very own dream vehicles with "Hot Wheels Custom Car Designer," but girls, who must be made to realize that their creative talents will never have any practical use whatsoever, must content themselves with creating yet more Barbie iconography for their notebooks and lunch pails with "Barbie Sticker Designer."

Everyone knows women are no good with machinery, so it is only the future world famous race car drivers who get to use the steering wheel controller in no less than three games -- "Hot Wheels Stunt Track Driver," "Al Unser, Jr Arcade Racing," and "Rally Challenge." Girls have to make do with "Barbie Super Sports" (snowboarding and in-line skating in fashionable outfits).

God forbid little girls should ever learn anything about their bodies... they might discover what all the stuff Down There is for, and then who knows what might happen. Budding MDs, some of whom might even become gynecologists some day, get "Bodyworks" (a virtual version of one of those plastic transparent manikins with removable internal organs), while girls can take a virtual tour of the "Barbie Riding club," thereby learning early on to sublimate any sexual curiosity they might have into a passion for horses.

Young explorers can learn the stories of their pioneer ancestors (and practice the exploitation and extirpation of native peoples) with "Oregon Trail 4," but girls, of course, need to learn that even when they are magnanimously allowed to be the heroines, ultimately there is no story for them but marriage (with its attendant clothing fetishes and shopping rituals). Such lessons abound in "Magic Fairy Tales: Barbie as Rapunzel," where, regardless of how insipid he is, not to mention lacking in certain (ahem) needed accessories, Barbie's sole interest is the rescue of her handsome prince, Ken.

I'm not sure why collecting things is supposed to be a manly activity, but aspiring antique dealers can get lots of practice with "Hot Wheels Ultimate Collector's Guide." Girls, however, must learn that their skills lie not with objects but with people, and what better way to learn this lesson than to throw a Barbie themed party for all their friends and/or all their dolls with the help of "Barbie Party Print n Play."

Young scholars everywhere will find "Compton's the complete reference collection" useful, but naturally no girl would care to bother with such dry male stuff when they can use "Barbie Screen Styler" to Barbie-ize their windows desktop.

Everyone knows of course that unlike the budding graphic designers making use of the "Kid Pix Studio" drawing program, girls, who exist to be looked at rather than to look, are word oriented instead and would much prefer to write tales about shopping for their wedding dresses with "Barbie Storymaker."

I don't mean to say that girls have no advantages -- boys will never have the pleasure of exploring the undersea world with "Barbie Ocean Discovery," for instance, or of helping Barbie to solve baffling fashion crimes with "Barbie Detective." Nor do boys have an opportunity to use the "Barbie Photo Designer digital camera" to (as the web site puts it) "become part of the world of Barbie," (meaning put pictures of yourself next to a life sized virtual Barbie, I presume) which means only the girls will get to see just how far they are from Barbie's ideal weight, more's the pity.

But in the end, it is the young mathematicians who can take an interest in "The ClueFinders Math 9-12," and "Logical Journey of the Zoombinis," while girls receive instead training in proper feminine interests through "Barbie Cool Looks Fashion Designer," in which you dress up a virtual Barbie and then take virtual pictures of her on the runway. Just in case any residual traces of tomboyism remain unassimilated by such activity, there is "Barbie Print n Play," which, I assume (there's no description on the web site), lets you select costumes for your Barbie, print them out on special fabric paper and sew or paste them together.

To sum up, aside from the eight shared software titles, girls get twelve Barbie themed programs. Boys seem to have shorter attention spans than girls, because they only get six racing-themed titles. But they also get a geography/exploration/history program (Oregon trail), an anatomy program, a general reference collection, and a drawing program, not to mention two mathematics programs denied to their sisters. Like the talking Barbie says, "Math is hard! Let's go shopping!"

This Christmas I'm going to go out and swap the voiceboxes of several dozen GI Joe and Barbie talking dolls. I hear it's a great stress reliever.

I think Patriot Computers and its marketing department should perish in flames.