Contents

Turbo HELP

Contents  (this topic)

Description

Operation

Menus

Technical Notes

Turbo is a shareware program.  The license price is $8.00 for unlimited use on a single computer.   When you use Turbo, you will be asked to register a license key.  When you register a key, by using the register menu to input your key value, the reminders to register will stop.  Until you obtain a key, you can use Turbo normally, since nothing is disabled.

To register, send your check to the author, along with the product name (Turbo), and the domain name of the NT computer where Turbo will be used (the name assigned to your computer when NT was installed).  You will receive a key value (a big number) by return post, or by e-mail if you provide an address.  Use this value with the register menu, to make the registration requests go away.  The same key may also be used with later versions of Turbo.  If you need to move the license to another computer (with a different domain name), a new key may be obtained gratis from the author.

The author may be contacted by any of the following means:

Compuserve	76450, 2336
FAX	(408) 942-9180
Phone	(408) 263-2268
Internet	mico@ix.netcom.com

Post	Mike Cornelison
1806 Milmont Drive #185
Milpitas, CA  95035

You may freely redistribute Turbo, as long as all files in the original distribution are included, and no fee is charged except for media.  Turbo is copyrighted.  All rights are retained.  The author does not warrant the suitability of Turbo for any purpose.

Registration via CompuServe: GO SWREG and use registration ID 4442.  $10 will be deducted from your account (the minimum for CompuServe registration).  E-mail your domain name to get your license key (and stop the registration reminders).


Turbo Description

Turbo is a software "Turbo Switch".  You may set the effective CPU speed anywhere from 1 to 100 % of full speed.  All programs will execute at the reduced CPU speed set by Turbo.   This could be useful for the following situations:

o	A program designed with CPU timing loops needs to be slowed down to run on a faster CPU than originally intended.
o	A program outputs information very quickly, and overwrites this information before it can be viewed by the user.
o	Software being debugged needs to be slowed down, so that the details of its graphic output sequence can be observed.
o	Software being developed needs to be tested under adverse loading conditions, or its performance on a slower CPU needs to be evaluated.

Usage for dirty tricks is inhibited by the fact that Turbo always displays its icon, and it can always be stopped easily.


Operation

To operate Turbo, run the program TURBO.EXE, select the menu TURBO, enter a value in the range 1-100 in the dialog box, press the OK button.  To change the speed, select the menu TURBO and enter another value.  If TURBO is minimized, the current speed is displayed in the icon.  To stop execution, select the menu QUIT.


Menus

Quit	Quit the application
Turbo	Dialog: set new Turbo Speed
Help	Display application help file (this file)


Technical Notes

Turbo works by starting a high-priority execution thread that consumes 100 % of the CPU time minus the turbo speed that has been set.  Normal threads get only what is left over.  Real-time threads are not affected (for example, I have used modem applications successfully with my turbo speed set to 10%).

If you check the CPU loading of Turbo by using the NT Performance Monitor, you will get incorrect results (at least that is what I see as of this writing).  With a turbo speed set to 10% (i.e. 90% CPU usage), Performance Monitor will report 50% CPU usage.   You can check who is right as follows: time any CPU-bound application running by itself, and then with a turbo speed set to 10%.  There should be a 10X increase in the elapsed time.   I have asked Microsoft about this, and so far there has been no answer.   I will speculate that Performance Monitor has a problem with threads that switch as rapidly as Turbo does (10 milliseconds).