Gordon Moore, founder of Intel, observed that computer processor complexity approximately doubled every eighteen months. This observation has become famous as “Moore’s Law” and predicts that computer performance grows exponentially. Thus we expect a fairly new (circa 2005/06) computer running modern software to perform a simple task like word processing much more quickly than a vintage computer (circa 1988/89). After all, should be approximately 28 times more powerful.
Well, as the story Vintage Macs with System 6 Run Circles Around 3 GHz Windows 2000 PC shows, the old systems clearly beat a new computer when it comes to start-up time and word-processing.