GUI Desktop on a C64 in 40 Seconds 

Recently, at the office, we were discussing how long it takes our blasted MS-Windows PC to boot up. All these dual-core 64bit machines and it still takes a good four minutes (at the best of times - but I've clocked my office-issued PC to take over nine minutes sometimes) before we can start working.

Now, my eeePC with Mandriva takes about 90 seconds... then I thought of my Commodore 64. It might only be a 1 mHz PC with a mere 64K of RAM, but it still takes less than a minute to get a fully functional GUI desktop up and running (namely, GEOS).

The only thing that came close to comparison back then was the Apple Macintosh, but it required a LOT more in hardware and was three to four times the price. It was also limited in it's capabilities, when compared to what the C64 could do - which was also available a couple years earlier.

Ah, the days when writing computer code was a real art and forced people to be innovative.... I miss them. And Commodore really did bring home computing to the masses, changing the industry forever.