why have a turbo button?

[bdog]

I was just wondering why many of the older computers had a turbo button. Was it just some kind of marketing ploy, or is there actually a reason to want your computer to run slower at times?

[DHatAVI]

I don't know this for certain, but it is my understanding that some early computer programs (but not many) needed an 8Mhz operating system to function properly. So it is my understanding that the nonturo mode was retained so that later motherboards could still be compatible with those few programs.

David

[welsh wizard]

righton, kept things working from the past, if you want some fun ,try running Ms Chomp on pentium 2

[Glytzhkof]

I was under the impression that the "turbo button" just raises the bus speed by a couple of Mhz.

[Ygor]

Right. The old turbo buttons raise the speed by 2.5-3% and were a troubleshooting aid as I understand it. Mayhaps one of the real techs will comment?

As for why have it, seen any on new machines for the past coupla years?

[skywalker[TSG]]

why is there no slowdown button ? old programs run too fast on newer comps

[hai]

If you slowdown your pc, win9x will take forever to loadup.

[KillerBug]

Older programs needed a slower system not because they would not run, but that programers designed the program to run at just the right speed based on a 6-10mhz CPU in DOS. When the 486 chips and early pentiums came along, they wanted to maintain compatability with these prgrams, so they took the early overclocking Turbo buttin and changed it into an underclocking buttin. Today, all you need to do on a P3 600 to get these programs to run is launch media player.