Ah, Gateway 2000....
I remember one of their ads in PC Magazine (remember the "Abort, Retry, Fail" comedic bits at the back?) way back in 1992. They all dressed up like cast members from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. It was one of the best computer ads that I'd ever seen because they really went all-out with the costumes, weapons and settings. Ted Waitt was dressed up as Robin Hood and his director of purchasing was dressed up as the Sherriff of Nottingham with other employees dressed up as Maid Marion, Little John, Will Scarlett and the rest of the merry men. I remember thinking "this is just awesome!".
Their PCs also looked really good at the time (aesthetically that is, they were beautiful to look at). I never ended up getting one because I did my first build almost 4 years prior and was already hooked on custom building. I'd have to say that they were the most appealing "brand-in-a-box" PC on the market at the time. Then Acer bought them, dropped the "2000" part and made Gateway their premium line before discontinuing the name altogether. I remember that back when I worked at Tiger Direct, Acer had three brands of craptops that we carried. Their entry-level craptops were branded as eMachines, their mainstream craptops were branded as Acer and their fancy craptops were branded as Gateway. Over in Europe, they were also producing Packard-Bell at the time. Now there's just Acer.
I'd love to get my hands on an old Gateway 2000 just to open it up and see what parts they used. Hell, they existed long enough to have made ATX standard PCs so maybe I'd even be tempted to do a build in an old Gateway 2000 case!
