> enjoyed computing so much more in the 80's

Also the days when you turned on a computer it was ready to rock within two seconds. A few friends were discussing video game load times throughout the years. Overall the elapsed times haven't changed much at all.

That does not match my memory at all. Booting my family’s 386, even into DOS, was a minutes-long affair involving memory tests and messages like “loading HIMEM.SYS”.

Any sort of GUI took a minute or two to boot. My laptop today is ready to go before I get the lid fully open.