Old consoles boot faster than your new laptop
Press the power button on a 1985 console and you are playing in two seconds. We timed it, and then asked why that got lost.
PN
Priya Nair
Contributing writer
Filed under
Tech
Gadgets, code and the craftspeople who fix things. Written for people who use technology, not people who sell it.
The short version
1
An old console starts in two seconds. Our laptops took far longer.
2
Modern devices do a lot of work before they’re ready.
3
Switch off start-up apps and win some of it back.
We ran a small, unscientific experiment in the office last month. We lined up a games console from the mid-1980s, a new laptop, a phone and a smart television, and pressed every power button at the same moment. Then we timed how long it took each one to let us do the thing we turned it on for.
The console won by a distance. From button press to playing a game: just under two seconds. The phone took eleven. The laptop took thirty-four, then asked us to install an update. The television showed a logo, loaded a menu, then showed an advert before it let us pick a channel. We stopped the clock at fifty-two.
Why the old machine was faster
The console was not faster in any technical sense. Its processor is tens of thousands of times slower than the one in the phone. It was faster because it did almost nothing. When it switched on, it ran the program on the cartridge. There was no operating system to load, no account to check, no network to join and nothing to download.
Modern devices are doing a remarkable amount of work before they let you in. They are checking security, syncing your files, loading background services, fetching notifications and, increasingly, deciding what to show you first. All of it has a reason. Together, it is the reason you stare at a logo.
The old machine had one job and did it the moment you asked. Nothing is waiting for an update.
The cost of always being ready
Most modern devices solve slow start-up by never really switching off. Your laptop sleeps. Your phone is always on. That hides the delay, but it also means the machine is quietly working for you, or for someone, all the time. The console did not hide anything. When it was off, it was off.
What we can steal from it
Turn off apps that open when your computer starts. Most of them do not need to.
Use a single-purpose device for one thing: an e-reader for books, a music player for music.
Notice how often the first thing a screen shows you is not the thing you came for.
None of us is going back to cartridges. But the two-second console is a useful measuring stick. When a device makes you wait, it is worth asking what it is doing in that time, and who it is doing it for.
The console is still on the shelf by the door. It gets switched on more than you would think, usually by someone waiting for their laptop.
From the camera roll
Pick up and play
Controller in, lights off
The old telly, still on duty
“The old machine had one job and did it the moment you asked. Nothing is waiting for an update.”
— Priya Nair
Reader mail
Letters about this post.
“Timed my laptop after this. Then turned off nine start-up apps.”
“My console still boots faster than my car’s screen.”
“Two seconds. That’s the whole review.”
PN
Written by
Priya Nair
Priya times things for fun: start-up screens, kettles, queues. She writes about slow technology and the joy of single-purpose objects.
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