this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
1568 points (98.0% liked)
memes
10686 readers
1878 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to [email protected]
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
Sister communities
- [email protected] : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- [email protected] : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- [email protected] : Linux themed memes
- [email protected] : for those who love comic stories.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Y'all remember the turbo button?
Yes, and I was astounded to learn that it's function is actually the opposite. It slows your computer's processor down to near-8086 speeds for software (games, mostly) that didn't use timers but was rather tied directly to the CPU clock speed.
Unless you mean the "turbo" button on your NES Advantage controller. That button's primary function was to annoy the shit out any adults within earshot by spamming the jump noise or pause-unpause jingle.
My understanding of the 286/386 systems was that turning it off would have the exact effect you describe, and "turbo" would simply put the processor to the design frequency.
It was meant to be left on unless you needed to turn it off for some reason.
Correct. Labeling the button "slower" would have been more accurate, but probably a bad marketing move.
That's correct. The reason it was there is that some games were written assuming a specific processor speed. When faster processors came out, the games ran too fast. The turbo button let you play older games on your new computer.
I remember playing a port of centipede that used text mode graphics - on the original 8086 it was playable, but on my dad's 386, you'd start the game and immediately lose because the centipede had already reached the bottom in like 1/10th second.
"Text mode graphics" would probably confuse a lot of the younger folks all by itself...
Ah yes… the difference between 25Hz and 33Hz on an x8086….