Blue Clues, Rugrats to adorn Gateway PCs

Beige box: The bell tolls for thee.

In another sign that boring, putty-colored PCs are passé, Gateway and Nickelodeon are teaming up to put cartoon characters Blue Clues and Rugrats on PCs aimed at kids.

The move follows Mattel's announcement in August that it would produce Barbie and Hot Wheels PCs.

Gateway will be promoting special Blues Clues and Rugrats versions of its all-in-one Astro PC, but the characters will be available on any Gateway model. Enhancements include a special keyboard, mouse and decorative border. Gateway will also bundle four Blues Clues and Rugrats games with each PC.

The $899 Blues Clues and Rugrats basic models will come with a 400MHz Celeron, 64MB of RAM, an integrated 15" monitor, 4.3GB hard drive, 40X CD-ROM drive, integrated speakers, four USB ports and 56K modem. The story is posted at www.news.com .