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How to slow down a program and why it can be useful

(stefan-marr.de)
125 points todsacerdoti | 2 comments | 27 Aug 25 11:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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weinzierl ◴[27 Aug 25 12:34 UTC] No.45038790[source]▶
For the Commodore 64 there was a product called the C64 Snail which could slow it down.

Later on the early PCs we had a Turbo Button, but since everyone had it in Turbo mode all the time it essentially was a way to slow down the machine.

EDIT: Found an image of what I remember as the "C64 Snail". It is called "BREMSE 64" (which is German for brake) in the image.

https://retroport.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/bremse64_rex...

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1. k__ ◴[27 Aug 25 12:42 UTC] No.45038854[source]▶
Interesting.

I had the impression, the turbo button was created to slow down new PCs, so they could run old software that relied heavily on CPU speed.

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2. weinzierl ◴[27 Aug 25 12:56 UTC] No.45039009[source]▶
Yes, originally it was added to slow down faster XTs to exactly the 4.77 MHz of the original IBM XT.

With the AT it usually slowed down to some arbitrary frequency and it was more like a gimmick.