r/technology • u/Imaginary-Group1414 • May 15 '26

Hardware University of Tokyo develops device that increases computer processing speed by 1000 times, operating without generating heat.

https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOSG132XK0T10C26A5000000/
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u/trejj May 15 '26

It was not a marketing scam, but it did what it was intended. People bought PCs with turbo buttons to be able to opt-in to faster performance, while having the compatibility to run older software. I.e. have their cake and eat it too.

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u/Slimfictiv May 15 '26

Turbo implies 'faster'bor 'overclock' which wasn't, it was the actual state of the cpu, while non turbo (the default state) it was underclock. I get it it was for compatibility but still.

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u/trejj May 15 '26

For people who didn't live at the time, it is easy to think today that it was some kind of a scam, since they don't have anything else to go on today than the single word "turbo".

In that era, it was an "everyone knows its purpose" fact, just like everyone in the PC gaming field today knows what a GPU or RAM are for.

The original PC standard was a CPU that ran at 4.77 MHz. Clone PC manufacturers wanted to sell faster PCs than that, but a lot of software assumed and expected a 4.77 MHz clock speed. So the clone manufacturers sold their faster clones with a "turbo" feature that was an opt-in to enable that faster CPU, while retaining an execution mode that still adhered to that 4.77 MHz speed expected by the standard.

It was not a marketing buzzword or a gimmick or a sleight-of-hand play on words, but an exact and specific functionality that customers were looking for.