Today it is a rare auction when major buyers like the oil heir Robert M. Bass, the computer magnate Anthony Wang or the Tour de France champion Greg LeMond are seen bidding.

Once upon a time, before the Internet had pictures and was all the rage, Quincy Jones, the music impresario, sat with William H. Gates, the computer magnate, at a technology conference, talking about the future.

They were an eclectic bunch that included a winemaker, a computer magnate, an investment banker and two lawyers.

But a request from the Guggenheim Foundation seems about as likely as the computer magnate William H. Gates asking for a loan.

His mother taught social studies at the junior high level, his father an engineer for a large computer magnate based out of California.

Dell's case also illustrates that universities do face a certain amount of risk in nurturing campus capitalists: the young computer magnate dropped out of school after his freshman year to concentrate on running his business.

But they sold 80 percent of the colt in February to Jess Jackson, the founder of Kendall-Jackson wines; Satish Sanan, a computer magnate; and George Bolton, an investment banker.

Barely three months after H. Ross Perot, the computer magnate, withdrew his $70 million bid to buy the Museum of the American Indian for Texas, a new suitor with even deeper pockets has appeared.

More like computer magnate.

Even the computer magnate in his private jet remembers his heroic days in Silicon Valley when he was soldering semi-legal circuit boards in a small garage.