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> pretty much everone stuck with the AT bus until PCI came out There was also EISA which was quite popular as an alternative to MCA until PCI bedded itself in.

> pretty much everone stuck with the AT bus until PCI came out There was also EISA which was quite popular as an alternative to MCA until PCI bedded itself in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Industry_Standard_Architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Industry_Standard_Arc... I particularly enjoyed this (possibly apocryphal bit): "when it became clear to IBM that Micro Channel was dying, IBM licensed EISA for use in a few server systems."

aidenn0 6y ago
I forgot about that. Interesting how 2 generations in a row basically followed the same pattern of commodity, server, high-speed commodity: ISA, EISA, VLB PCI, PCI-X, AGP
- teh_klev 6y ago
  Crikey, I'd forgotten about AGP, though that was specifically for graphics cards (as was VLB) rather than being general purpose.
  - logbiscuitswave 6y ago
    I remember having both AGP and VLB graphics cards at one time or another. Definitely got the short end of that stick when PCI came along and became the de facto standard. I do seem to recall for a short period of time there were some motherboards with both PCI and AGP slots for those who really needed that level of interoperability.
    - phibz 6y ago
      AGP superceded PCI for graphics. It was based on PCI and was a dedicated link that received multiple increases in speed over its lifetime. AGP, 2x, 4x, 8x. Etc. Boards with PCI and AGP were very common. You could even find ones with ISA, PCI, and AGP.
cardiffspaceman 6y ago
I own an inoperable relic which has an EISA bus, SCSI card, advanced VGA card, Colorado tape drive, Zip Drive, and a fair amount of RAM to support a 486DX-50. I ran DOS, Windows 3.11, and OS/2 2.0 on it at various times. I may have tried out Windows NT 3.something too. These components and the EISA bus itself were standard enough to be supported by that range of OS's.
- rsync 6y ago
  That's funny - I am sure I had an issue of Computer Shopper that had all of those items circled in felt pen ...

aidenn0 6y ago

I forgot about that. Interesting how 2 generations in a row basically followed the same pattern of commodity, server, high-speed commodity: ISA, EISA, VLB PCI, PCI-X, AGP

teh_klev 6y ago
Crikey, I'd forgotten about AGP, though that was specifically for graphics cards (as was VLB) rather than being general purpose.
- logbiscuitswave 6y ago
  I remember having both AGP and VLB graphics cards at one time or another. Definitely got the short end of that stick when PCI came along and became the de facto standard. I do seem to recall for a short period of time there were some motherboards with both PCI and AGP slots for those who really needed that level of interoperability.
  - phibz 6y ago
    AGP superceded PCI for graphics. It was based on PCI and was a dedicated link that received multiple increases in speed over its lifetime. AGP, 2x, 4x, 8x. Etc. Boards with PCI and AGP were very common. You could even find ones with ISA, PCI, and AGP.

cardiffspaceman 6y ago

I own an inoperable relic which has an EISA bus, SCSI card, advanced VGA card, Colorado tape drive, Zip Drive, and a fair amount of RAM to support a 486DX-50. I ran DOS, Windows 3.11, and OS/2 2.0 on it at various times. I may have tried out Windows NT 3.something too. These components and the EISA bus itself were standard enough to be supported by that range of OS's.

rsync 6y ago
That's funny - I am sure I had an issue of Computer Shopper that had all of those items circled in felt pen ...