This was what went into it. The basic kit, all in pieces, was:

(By the way, does anyone know what the + and - are when they describe DVD RW drives?)

Asus A8V Deluxe Socket 939 Barebone Kit / AMD Athlon 64 3400+ / CPU Fan / Mid-Tower Case / Keyboard / Mouse / Speakers (A455-2110 B) $300

Then I have added (the super-whiz-bang video card has 128megs memory, and is super to me, not the gaming world by any means):

Maxtor 60GB / 7200 / 2MB / ATA-133 EIDE Hard Drive (THD-60M2 P) Extra $50

Another Maxtor / 7200 / 8MB/ SATA HD extra $50

Ultra 512MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory (ULT30215) 2 Extra $100

XFX GeForce FX 5200 / 128MB DDR / AGP 8X / VGA / TV Out / Video Card (P450-8602) Extra $45

And a DVD RW and CD-RW are coming, to the tune of $114 for the pair, as I want to leave my other computer intact.

Oh, yes. I bought a humongous CPU fan and heatsink (120mm across for the fan) and some other case fans. HD fans and heatsinks for the memory.

So, I have more in it than $300, but I could have gotten by for the $300 had I wanted to gut my other computer.