David,
I spend a lot of my time writing, and I will ocasionally get ideas in my head, and in a moment's notice I'll want to type them out and store them. I continually curse my PCs for taking so long just to let me access a text editor and type in a paragraph of text. The act of turning on the PC can sometimes take longer than the work I want to do. By the time I've got a blinking cursor, I've forgotten half of the inspiration.
The same is true when all I want to do is copy a file, or download a photo from the camera. The amount of interaction from me is minimal and yet the job still takes forever.
I long for an OS that can boot up instantly, like switching on a TV or turning on a light.
Get an Atari 400 and don't plug a cartridge into it. It literally takes about two seconds to boot into the "textpad". Storage can be an issue though, for that I recommend keeping a VCR hooked up to record the session.
