this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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Lying through its teeth.
There was a bunch of DOS software that runs too fast to be usable on later processors. Like a Rouge-like game where you fly across the map too fast to control. The Turbo button would bring it down to 8086 speeds so that stuff is usable.
Damn. Lol I kept that turbo button down all the time, thinking turbo = faster. TBF to myself it's a reasonable mistake! Mind you, I think a lot of what slowed that machine was the hard drive. Faster than loading stuff from a cassette tape but only barely. You could switch the computer on and go make a sandwich while windows 3.1 loads.
Oh, yeah, a lot of people made that mistake. It was badly named.
TIL, way too late! Cheers mate
Actually you used it correctly. The slowdown to 8086 speeds was applied when the button was unpressed.
When the button was pressed the CPU operated at its normal speed.
On some computers it was possible to wire the button to act in reverse (many people did not like having the button be "on" all the time, as they did not use any 8086 apps), but that was unusual. I believe that's was the case with OPs computer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_button