Kids with serious illnesses who are granted a special wish usually want to go to Disneyland, or meet a famous celebrity, or maybe get a new TV. Something like that.

Not Peter Valeo. The 12-year- old Illinois boy told the Starlight Foundation what he really wanted was a super powerful personal computer. And this week he got it -- a state-of-the-art system courtesy of Intel, the giant chipmaker.

A year ago, Pete wasn't really into computing. But what happened to him last December 16 changed all that. His father, Tom, recalls: "He went to school and was fine, but by 10 in the morning he was having trouble walking. By 3 in the afternoon he was completely paralyzed."

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Pete, an otherwise extraordinarily healthy lad, had been struck down by transverse myelitis, a rare viral infection that attacks the central nervous system. Some people recover from it completely, others die. About a third of all victims are left with some permanent damage.

After a week of hospitalization, Pete began to undergo rehabilitation. He was making remarkable progress -- he could even walk up and down the stairs at home -- when he suffered a crushing relapse five weeks after initially being struck down. Today, he is a paraplegic, paralyzed below the waist.

At first, the family PC provided a diversion, a way of filling time for a kid no longer able to play basketball or ride a bike. And then it become something more. "He started by playing games, and graduated from there to online services," said his father. "Now he even does some of his own programming. He's fearless about this stuff, he dives right in."

"It's given him a tool that I know he's going to use one way or another. It's sent his life on a new trajectory."

Thanks to online chat rooms and electronic mail, Pete also has been able, in a way, to get out and about. "The computer connects him with people in a way he wouldn't have otherwise," said Tom Valeo.

Perhaps most importantly, he says, "This has given him a lot of self-esteem that comes with being able to do something really well."

When the Starlight Foundation, which fulfills wishes for seriously ill children, asked Pete what he might like, he weighed the Disney option. But his newfound love of computers won out. Besides, he said, "Disneyland is just for a couple of days or a week. This is a longer-time thing."

Starlight spokeswoman Pamela Smith said other kids have asked for computers, "but this is the first time anyone has asked for one of this magnitude."

In September, Starlight contacted Intel. Not only did the giant Santa Clara company agree to provide the computer, it made Pete a member of its Pentium Pro user test program.

On Tuesday, a crew of three Intel technicians arrived at the Valeo home in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights. They

brought the new PC with them and set it up, although Pete probably could have done it himself.

The system is based on a 133- megahertz Pentium Pro, Intel's powerful new processor that made its debut earlier this month. It has a 1.6-gigabyte hard-disk drive and a 17-inch color monitor. If you wanted to go out and buy a system like that, it would run you well over $5,000.

"It'll dim the lights in his section of the suburbs when he turns this puppy on," joked Howard High, a spokesman for Intel.

Asked for a quick review of his new PC, Pete said he was most impressed by its speed.

"It's really fast," he said, "a big jump up from my old one."

He said he plans to use it for games, school reports and, of course, cruising the Internet.