I'm not sure I see the point also - unless you are short on space and can only have one machine it's probably best to build a seperate machine for each "era". An XT, 486 and a pentium or greater system are probably what you need for maximum compatibility.

The soyo one would be justifiable if you used it as your main machine and dual boot with win98 (you could cover 1997+ DOS games, plus all win98 games & later DOS GUS demos) - but it seems like a lot of effort and an unnecessary (and costly) compromise.

I'd probably just go with a BX board myself. Maybe an Asus p3b variant or Abit BF-6/BE-6.

Hello!
If you are a musician, who is short of some MIDI outs, you could put in a Roland MIDI interface, like the MPU-IPC-T or MPU-401/AT.

But other than that, I don't really see any use for those slots.

Regards,
locutus

Actually, there is a massive amount of games (and I assume non-game as well,) out there that you might want an ISA card for. Mostly games that came out in the 90's though. They are DOS based games that require a system of at least a certain speed (50 mhz, 200 mhz, 300 mhz, whatever,) but don't care if what you have is even faster. The problem with these games is that they require DOS level drivers/access to your cards. I know, for a fact, that no Creative PCI sound card is really DOS compatable. I have also tried other (non-Creative,) PCI sound cards and haven't found one (yet,) that is. Yes, Creative put out a "driver" to give you DOS access to the sound card, but it is buggy, requires too much conventional memory, does not allow alternate memory managers, etc... You might as well not even use it. I can give some specific examples from personal experience:

Ultima Underworld: With Creative's DOS driver installed, whenever you type any key while pressing <SHIFT> the game imediately locks up. Remove the driver and it works just great (just no sound.) The only effect faster machines have on the game is the title screens go by real fast, it has no effect on the game itself. So, you just don't have time to read the screen that says "don't copy this game, it's copyrighted." (paraphrased if you haven't guessed.)

Ultima VI (all of them:) Will not run with emm386.exe installed, yet Creative's driver absolutely "requires" that it is installed, so forget playing the game with sound. Again, the game plays just fine on faster machines. I've actually played it on a 1.x Ghz machine with an ISA Soundblaster card. It played just fine.

Other DOS based games that I know don't mind faster machines: Noctropolis, Companions of Xanth, The Legacy: Realm of Terror, X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Wing Commander 3+, Privateer 1 & 2, I'm sure there are many many more, just cannot think of them off hand.

There also exists expensive industrial equipment on ISA cards.

Like a production machine that was built with a ISA computer. Now that computer broke and they need a replacement.

FeedingDragon wrote:

Ultima VI (all of them:) Will not run with emm386.exe installed, yet Creative's driver absolutely "requires" that it is installed, so forget playing the game with sound. Again, the game plays just fine on faster machines. I've actually played it on a 1.x Ghz machine with an ISA Soundblaster card. It played just fine.

Pardon the nitpick, but you did mean Ultima VII, didn't you?

Seems kinda obvious. Only U7 and higher used protected mode and included DOS Extenders.

Yeah, I meant Ultima VII+ not VI+ One of the I's didn't go through and I didn't proofread 🙁 Sorry about that.