 |
The Turbo SwitchEverybody wants a fast computer, right? Not so fast! In the dawning days of the IBM pc, there was only one processor speed - 4.77 MHz. Most software doesn't care what speed the processor is, but in those days there were quite a few real-time games that made use of software timing loops to adjust the game's speed. These loops depended on the processor running at 4.77 MHz. When faster processors came out, people discovered that these games would run too fast to be played. Start the game and BAM! A ghost would kill your pacman. So, early computers with fast processors had a "turbo" switch. When left off, the processor would be artificially slowed down to an equivalent of 4.77 MHz for gaming. Turn it on, and your WordStar is treated to a blazing 12 MHz! Return to Latency Whitepaper |
|
Copyright 2002-2006 29West Inc. All rights reserved. |