Hangin' out around the 10-penny nails and sizing up the hammers was a great male pastime. In the 1950s and '60s, the hardware changed but the concept remained the same. At the turn of the new millennium, the computer has become the new boy's toy. While there are plenty of women who enjoy getting into the guts of a PC, the vast majority of hardcore hobbyists are male.
Studies tend to show that women use computers to get work done, as just another tool.
Men, on the other hand, can't leave well enough alone. They futz and fuss, almost compulsively adding new graphics cards, software upgrades, bigger hard drives. Fry's is coming. That location is already a hotbed of geek retailing activity. There's a Best Buy just up the road, and Fry's will share a parking lot with Compaq Computer Corp.'s factory outlet store.