Operating systems and computers have gone through a substantial amount of change in the past twenty years, but how has the amount of time it takes to open individual applications changed? Let's take a look at how long it takes to open various application programs on three different computers and six different operating systems...

Computer Model	DELL 2.8 GHz (2004)	COMPAQ DESKPRO 500 MHz	TANDY 1000 RLX 10 MHz (1991)			APPLE MACINTOSH LCII 16 MHz
Total Memory	256MB	64MB	1MB			8MB
Operating System	Win. XP	Win. 95	GeoWorks Ensemble 1.2	DeskMate 3.84 (1991)	Win. 2.03 (1987)	System 7
Wordpad	1	2	N/A
Notepad	1	N/A	2	N/A	2.5	1.5
Write	N/A	1	4	N/A	4	N/A
Adobe Reader	5		N/A
PW MediaCenter	27	28	N/A
My Computer	1		N/A
Internet Explorer	1.5	2	N/A
Paint/Draw	1.5		6	3	6	N/A
Game*	1	N/A	6	1.5	1	3
Terminal/Telecom	N/A		4.5	6	2	N/A
Word Prcsr.*	12-20	N/A	6	1	N/A	27

* Game refers to Solitaire (XP/GW), Hangman (DM), Puzzle (Mac), or Reversi
* Word prcsr. refers to Word 2002 (XP), GeoWrite, Text, or ClarisWorks

It appears that there is little difference in the time it takes to open the same applications in Windows 95 or XP, regardless of the 2.3 GHz difference in processor speeds and much lower memory capacity of the computer with '95. The Tandy 286 with only 1MB of RAM takes slightly longer to open some equivalent applications, while taking a shorter or equivalent period of time to open others, especially word processors.

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