On early IBM PCs (up until around the introduction of the PS/2 anyway) there was a key sequence to boot direct to BASICA, and it was always about as fast as the

On early IBM PCs (up until around the introduction of the PS/2 anyway) there was a key sequence to boot direct to BASICA, and it was always about as fast as the 8bits were - except that most of the 8bits didn't have the slow memory check that IBM insisted on.