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Could a VLB-Card be plugged into an ISA-slot?

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First post, by Silent Loon

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Looking for a good ISA graphic board, I saw a Diamond Stealth Pro at ebay. Asking the seller if it is the ISA or Vesa-Local-Bus version, he answered that the card is VLB but might also work in an (8-bit!) ISA-Slot.
This seemed unlikely to me, but nevertheless I found this on the web:

"VLB Connectors are usually inline with ISA connectors, so that adapter
cards may use both. However, the VLB is seperate, and does not need to
connect to the ISA portion of the bus."

Does this also work the other way around?
Plugging a VLB graphic board into an ISA slot, maybe only with reduced speed? Does it depend on the graphics card type (some cards have the complete ISA-connectors whereas others only wear the 8-bit part : http://thegreenhouse.us/th99/v/vVESA_1.php) ?
Can I destroy the board plugging in the card (or the card itself - same problem like the 3.3V vs. 1.5V problem with early AGP-2x/4x cards/boards)?

In addition I found this old VLB card data sheet, which is also confusing ("What you need: one free 32-bit ISA/VESA Local Bus Slot; Specifications: ISA/VESA Local Bus slot interface..." ):

http://www.jdr.com/PDF/currentspec/mct-vga-vl5.pdf

Edit: Tried it with a standard Cirrus Logic GD5422 based VLB graphic board, didn't work. Mobo's still alive... (used a SBC with ISA-backplane).

Reply 1 of 2, by swaaye

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I have heard of this working but have never tried it.... VLB is basically 16-bit ISA + that PCI-esque 3rd slot at the end. It may work with some cards but not others, I'd guess.

I've definitely used ISA cards in the VLB slots though.

Reply 2 of 2, by samudra

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Vesa Local Bus is a local bus just as PCI local bus. It is a quite separate implementation than ISA.

There really is no necessity for a VLB card to make any use of either 8 or 16-bit ISA (like your first source says).

In practice many of these cards do use 8-bit ISA, but only for the BIOS.

Take any one card and trace back the ISA bus contacts and you'll see they connect to the BIOS whereas the VLB contacts trace back to the videochip.

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