Mercedes to charge subscription for more power

As far back as the first generation "Pentium" chips.

Lower cost/slower versions were "crippled" at the factory, but other than that were identical to the faster ones.

Supposedly at first because there weren't enough lower end ones to meet demand.

Some could be "overclocked" to eliminate the factory cripple, but later ones were not as easy.

IIRC this was around 1997-ish.