ISA Motherboards

In the early days of Personal Computers, all expansion slots inside a computer were ISA slots. As technology progressed, VLB slots were introduced that became popular with graphics and I/O controller applications. They were soon surpassed by PCI slots. AGP slots were introduced for better graphics and they got replaced by PCI Express expansion slots. But through all this ISA slots survived. More than 30 years and still going strong.

ISA motherboards are still in demand and used in applications that require a computer to control other machinery like CNC routers, manufacturing, POS, and numerous other applications. The ISA controller cards generally used in such computers don't require anything more than a 16 bit ISA slot even though they run very complex applications and control machinery valued at millions of dollars. Such applications require ISA motherboards and companies like interloper.com try to do their best to keep them in stock.

You won't find ISA slots in everyday computers or motherboards that you buy from computer stores or online sites. You only find them at specialty computer companies like interloper.com.

Only a few very small manufacturers make such motherboards and supply is spotty but at times refurbished motherboards are available that can keep these computers going.

What may surprise you is the choice of form factors that ISA motherboards are available in like:

• AT
• Baby AT
• ATX
• Micro ATX

When ISA motherboards were in vogue, the 80286 processors were around, followed by the 80386 and 80486. You may still find ISA slots in:

• Socket 3 - 486 motherboards
• Socket 5 and socket 7 - Pentium motherboards
• Socket 8 - Pentium Pro motherboards
• Slot 1 - Pentium II and Pentium III motherboards
• Slot A - AMD Athlon motherboards
• Socket A - AMD Athlon motherboards
• Socket 370 - Pentium and Celeron motherboards
• Socket 478 - Pentium 4 motherboards
• Socket 775 - Pentium 4 motherboards
• Socket 775 Dual Core and Quad Core - Pentium 4, Core2 Duo and Quad Core motherboards

If you need a motherboard with ISA slots, the best thing is to contact interloper.com or use their motherboard search engine at https://www.interloper.com/mbsearch.php