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I Assumed 'Twas The Boot Code (lemmy.nz)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by Bring_Back_Buggy_Whips@sh.itjust.works to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev

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[-] Pogbom@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago

You might have meant it as a joke but just in case someone else isn't aware, this button actually made your CPU slower 🤓

[-] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

Depends on the motherboard version. On later ones, the turbo actually worked to make your PC faster.

[-] tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 22 points 10 months ago

As far as I understand, it's purely marketing semantics.

The point of the 'Turbo' button is to slow the CPU down to provide compatibility with old software that was written with a fixed clockspeed, where the software would become unusably fast on newer CPUs.

Calling this a "slow" mode or "compatibility" mode wasn't very marketing-sexy however, so manufacturers just flipped it around and called the normal speed 'Turbo'.

With later systems, developers all became aware that varying CPU frequencies were a thing, and started to base their software timings on the realtime clock instead.

So in later systems there was no longer any need to have the CPU run at anything other than its maximum (normal) speed - and the turbo button simply went away.