I kinda want one on my desktop machine now. There's a simple beauty to a button that can slow your computer down if it's too fast for you. Maybe one on my life too.
Renault Sport, Porsche, SAAB and Nissan were doing great things with turbo charged cars in the 1980's, the implication of 'turbo' was clear and you could get 'Turbo' bicycle seats and even 'Turbo' sunglasses that embraced the concept. So it was a bit of brilliant thinking to name the clock speed button 'Turbo', it did what it said on the tin.
In the current era cars have more sophisticated interiors, often featuring a dial that enables the driver to choose between 'eco', 'comfort' and 'sport' settings. If you have got a long drive and you are paying the petrol then 'eco' might make sense, if you haven't got the wife and kids in the car and the boss is paying for the petrol then 'sport' might be the preferred setting.
We have all sat in front of laptops that whirr away even if we are just kicking back and reading Hacker News. We have all sat in front of laptops on some train journey where 'range anxiety' sets in and you fumble for screen brightness and other controls to extend the battery life. Yet we probably specified that super fast CPU with lots of RAM for compiling stuff or, heaven forbid, playing the odd game.
Wouldn't it be great if the Turbo button came back as a simple hardware switch that enabled you to easily switch up from 'eco' to 'comfort' to 'sport' modes? If you wanted a break from the fan noise then you could just slip into 'comfort' mode, then, when back to the grindstone with every second counting (due to the realities of project time keeping) you could step it up into 'sport' mode, knowing that fan noise won't disturb anyone in your open office? Back home you could then go back to 'comfort' mode with the fans only kicking in on compile, not because you have a gazillion tabs open.
So yes, I share your sentiment but I think the idea needs a reboot for the 2020's, by which time, as per the original 'Turbo' button the concept will be obsolete as we will all be using Intel 12th generation CPUs.
There were many computer cases where case buttons including Turbo were installed on standard drive bay covers. You can move it to your PC and connect it to the fan turning it on and off or switching a voltage. Without sufficient cooling your system will throttle.
