These programs are a set of six tiny little utilities that reset various values in the Hornet chip control registers. They operate at a very low level and can boost your system performance significantly. Likewise, they can be dangerous and cause unexpected side effects..... so be sure to back up all your data before trying these programs. Use then strictly at your own risk.
TURBOCPU.COM
This resets the Hornet chip telling it to expect a faster crystal than it actually has... the effect is that your CPU will seem to run at about 14 MHZ instead of its normal 10 MHz. The actual boost in performance is from reduced timer interrupts... Most benchmarks will be fooled too because they use the PIT as a clock to measure things. The Real Time clock will be unchanged because it uses a different crystal. The UART chip, however, *will* be out of synch and so you will have to reset the Hornet chip back to normal before using any datacomm programs by running NORMCPU.COM
MAXCPU.COM
This one uses the same method as before, but it carries the thing one step further: and it gives your CPU a fake 23 MHZ clock speed. This one caused my LCD screen to flicker a bit because the LCD refresh rate is contolled by the slowed PIT Timer. Also the typamatic rate of the keyboard is slowed along with any programs that make use of the PIT Timer. But most programs run just fine and at an increased speed.
NORMCPU.COM
Running this program will set the CPU speed back to its normal value. If you get scared and want to restore things back to normal, just run this program and it will put things back to the default speed. You will have to run this program before using any programs that access the serial port because the UART expects to have a reliable crystal to generate a specific baud rate and these CPU speedup programs are telling the entire Hornet chip a lie. Running this program resets the register to tell the Hornet chip the truth and the UART section will once again operate correctly.
So what will these CPU speedup programs give in the way of true CPU speed improvement? Here is what one independent investigator had to report:
Fm: Thomas Krug 100273,3703
To: robert williams 76167,2773
Robert,
I did some benchmarking with TURBO on the 100LX. I used the good old Dhrystone
benchmark which tests only CPU performance. Here the results:
Dhrystones1 Time1 Time2 Dhrystones2
NORMCPU 847 59sec 59sec 847
TURBOCPU 1282 39sec 55sec 909
MAXCPU 2000 25sec 51sec 980
Dhrystones1: the original results as calculated by Dhrystone with the internal
clock and shown on screen (a higher number means better performance)
Time1: time measured with the internal clock
Time2: time measured with an external stopwatch
Dhrystones2: these would be the correct results according to the external
clock with the real time, not to the wrong internal real time clock
With TURBOCPU the HP100's CPU runs 7% faster, with MAXCPU 16%.
TomK
TURBO.COM
This tiny little program resets the Wait states for the plug-in cards and ROM chips on your 100LX. By default, at cold reset, the plug-in card memory is normally set at a value of 3 wait states. However, for SRAM cards, the chips are almost as fast as the built-in RAM and so they can operate much faster than three wait states. This program decreases the wait states to zero for plug-in RAM and zero for the ROM chips too. Since I don't own a Flash Card..it has not been tested with that type of memory, which is typically much slower than SRAM and might actually need three wait states. Therefore, I suggest that it only be run on systems that use the SRAM cards and NOT by Flash Card users...
The effect of this program is to speed up the disk access time and file transfer rate for loading and unloading files from the A: Drive. To test its effect: just compare the amount of time the little hourglass symbol stays on the screen during file loading before and after running this program. I noticed a difference. You can also measure the speedup by checking how long a 100LX phonebook "find" operation takes.
It has also been shown that the ROM change of wait states improves the performance of execution of the System manager application code and improves the performance of the 100LX much more than changing the plug-in card SRAM wait states. There has been some concern expressed as to the systems' stability when running the ROMs at zero wait states: the jury is still out....let us know if your system crashes after running turbo.com because the information will be valuable. Personally, I have had no problems and I have heard no reports of poor system stability so far.
TURBORAM.COM and TURBOROM.COM
Keeping the following differences in the effects of changing the wait states for the plug-in RAM cards and the ROM memory in mind... I have added these two that only change the one type of memory and leaves the other alone. This way, if you have a Flash card you can just speed up the ROM and leave the Plug-in memory wait states set to three... Or, if you are worried about system stability and just want to check out the effect on the SRAM card... you can just change that and leave the ROM at its default value of one. I add them to give you more freedom of choice over what you want to alter in your system.
These programs are copyrighted freeware. They may not be sold for profit. They are yours to use and enjoy. They are also offered without any sort of warranty whatsoever. The author makes no claims about the suitability of this software for any purpose and the users are free to use these programs strictly at their own risk: I accept no responsibility for lost data, system crashes, hardware damage, etc. that may result from the use of these programs. They have not caused any sort of problem on my system... but your mileage may vary. They were created using assembly language with the DOS Debug program.
