Hardware Anti-Nagware Switch

Some programs, for reasons related to the author's malicious profiteering, produce deliberate delays (usually during starting) which are very annoying to users. There is, however, a very good method by which this evil practice could be fought. As is widely known, delay routines in software usually refer to the system clock, such that a speedier CPU does not make a given delay shorter. The universal "time constant" for all PC-compatibles is a "system timer chip" (an archaic name, for it is usually a part of the chipset on modern machines). This system device produces a "timer interrupt" at a constant rate, that does not usually vary between machines. The default tick rate is (if I recall correctly) ~18.2 ticks/second. There is, as I remember, also a multiplier register to control this rate. But, this is irrelevant. The only important fact is that delay routines specified for, say, 10 seconds, are actually counting ticks of the system clock and not usually CPU cycles. The proposed feature is then a button on the machine's case which would, when pushed, set the tick rate to a reasonable system maximum (allowing any delay routine to finish its work in an imperceptibly short period of time.) When this warp-jump takes place, a second clock counter (inaccessible to software) continues to keep the "real time" (time of day) in place of the system clock; the data from the backup clock is transfered to the real system clock's registers when the button is released. Thus, no program is able to annoy the user through producing deliberate delays. BUT... The evil-doers are sly and do not give up. They would begin to write crippleware which, upon boot-up, briefly times the system speed (by counting increments in a loop between ticks of the system clock), and then producing the correct delay through looping alone (without reference to the clock.) Then, a second button would be needed, which *slows down* the system clock to a glacial pace, also keeping the real time actively behind the scenes. This second button would need to be held down before the program is started, and as it boots. (If you believe that God has sent crippleware upon the Earth as a punishment for our sins, and that it is immoral to interfere with His Providence, this is not for you.)