The changes to the display of your startup screen are caused by the color
look-up table (CLUT). The Macintosh has many color combinations available.
For example, on an 8-bit system, there is a choice of 256 colors out of 16
million possibilities. The computer stores a color look-up table for a
startup screen graphic, and what you're noticing is the time it takes the
Macintosh to match the graphic to the CLUT. During this matching, there is
also a shift in the intensity of colors displayed in the graphic.