luciodra wrote: Wed Jan 21, 2026 7:12 pm
Don't waste time...I was hoping that by mounting the card on the ISA slot something would work...
No it's not going to work in an ISA slot, it needs the VLB extension on motherboard and accompanying bus logic to use such a card.
What I meant was that some day I would love to make a redesigned motherboard that actually has a VLB slot.
One is enough because realistically you'd only use it for a VLB graphics card.
More than one was flakey even back then on 486's..
Heck, even one was flakey so no wonder PCI killed it even though VLB was actually faster than PCI by quite a bit. Assuming your card was also ok with the bus running at the max rated 50mhz.
It was also very tied to the 486 bus and not as generic as PCI so there's that too. Though 386 was actually supported too, even the SX with its 16bit host interface instead of the normal 32.
For a hobby homemade computer I
think VLB probably makes a lot of sense unless you want the more modern PCI cards.
It's faster than PCI, and also much simpler being a bit of an ISA on stereoids. Or rather, it's an almost-486 bus directly exposed.
Edit: ah no I forget, PCI eventually went from 33 up to 66mhz did it? So then VLB is slower but it still has the simpler going for it I guess
