The area has sprouted computer-themed art galleries, a billiard hall and a Gold's Gym, where former geeks can acquire new muscles to match their beefed-up social status. There is even "Gulch Gossip," a column in a local computer magazine. Its author, who writes under the name Jonathan E., says, "My attitude is, if there's going to be a media industry, it's going to run by media morals -- people will get drunk and swap each other's wives."

Anthony Batts, an Internet consultant who moonlights as a bartender at an acid jazz club, said, "The beauty of living in San Francisco is you can't go to a burrito stand without running into two programmers."

"I'll be shaking margaritas and hear two people talking about Photoshop," he said, referring to a graphics program. "I end up giving advice over the bar."

Like any business community, the gulch has entrepreneurs in suits whose chief dream is to strike it rich with the next Microsoft. But for many, the pursuit of computer technology's outer edge is infused with cultural meaning: they want to claim it just as the 1960's generation staked out the frontiers of sex, drugs and rock.

"A lot of people in my generation are looking at technology as our thing to do," said Mr. Batts, 27. "I'm not about making tremendous money. I'm into doing things that are great."

The millennial thinking, at times, can be spread on very thick. "We know we're in the middle of something that's changing the world in a way," said Minoo Saboori, an electrical engineer, who, along with a partner, Matthew London, an art school graduate, founded Eden Interactive.