When playing guitar became PC

Guitars--especially electric guitars--are highly adaptable tools. Not only are they among the most musically versatile instruments, they can be outfitted and accessorized with enough gadgets and electronics to fill Metallica's tour bus.

It was just a matter of time, then, before we'd see something like the Intel/Fender Telecaster, a concept guitar introduced last fall. It's a Fender Telecaster--the guitar of choice for many lead players in country-music and rock 'n' roll groups--whose solid wood body has been routed out to accommodate a Hewlett-Packard TC1100 tablet laptop with 1.25GB of RAM, an Echo Indigo I/O sound card and Intel's Centrino wireless technology.

The idea here is that you can play the guitar and listen privately through headphones, record a demo, e-mail the demo to friends, tap into whatever online resources you want (including music downloads), and use the guitar-PC's Webcam to video yourself looking bored while you're peeling off a hot lead.

Not a bad concept, although you can do most of that with a regular guitar, a separate PC and software and a couple of accessories. Intel and Fender have produced a few more such Telecasters, which tour around the world to help market the products of both companies. Don't expect to see one of these at your local Guitar Center, though. They're not being produced for retail sale.