> After fighting with a really cheap 486 M/B [*] I'm about to spend
> some money in buying a new one with PCI. Since I have the CPU, just
> the lobotomized board is all I need.
> 
> I've seen a nicely manufactured [&] 486 that has 4 PCI, 1 VLB, 3 ISA
> with Intel chipset. An IDE controller is on the M/B (although I don't
> have IDE), and there is a PCI daughter card with an NCR 53c810 SCSI
> interface. The SCSI bios is already on the motherboard.

Unlike Charles' comments, this isn't the ASUS SP3G, that board (which I have
and am thrilled with), has no VL slots.  It is a great board though, 
NCR 53C810 on the motherboard, Award BIOS, 3 PCI/4ISA (with one PCI/ISA 
overlap as is common).  It uses Intel Saturn II Rev 4 chipset which fixes
the bugs in Rev 2 and screams.  A lot of the speed is because of memory 
interleaving, so SIMMs have to go in in pairs.  It also has 2*16550AF
serial ports and one ECP/EPP parallel port on the motherboard.
The board also supports power management (not a big deal for unix) and
the 3.3V chips.

> My questions are:
> - does netbsd work well with the NCR PCI scsi? I currently have
>   an AHA 1542CF which I know is the bottleneck (my DEC RZ26 disk
>   is definately faster than the 1400K/s I currently get)

Yes.  Overall results are about 2-4X faster from an AHA-1542 to the NCR
SCSI chip (unloaded system, lots of memory, etc).

> - I assume that the PCI scsi does NOT have the 16MB limitations
>   that the AHA1542 has? 

Correct.  Note that the ASUS SP3G also has an ISA IDE controller on the
motherboard which does have these limitations.  There is a slightly different
version with no SCSI and a PCI IDE controller.

> - what are people's general feelings with PCI & NetBSD? For a long
>   time I have been contemplating going EISA for SCSI, but if this
>   proposed setup will _rock_ I'll be a very happy person.

It varies greatly.  The ASUS motherboard has been great.  On the other hand,
my experience with DECs PC XL's, which are Rev 2 saturn II chipset, has been
awful, horrid, and appalling.
Note that when things work, PCI is dramatically faster than EISA, at least
in terms of real observed performance (1742 versus NCR or BT-956C is about
2/3's speed at best.

> I have to go straight to PCI scsi if I buy this board. The reason:
> I have 4 ISA cards (enet, scsi, sound, serial), and it looks like
> PCI SCSI is the cheapest (with most to gain) method to go.

Yes.
 
> PS: Cost is AU$215 for M/B, and AU$110 for card, which combined
> is still cheaper than a new AHA1542CF (AU$340) at cheapo rates.
> So I hope to get faster performance for Less.

The SP3G can be found for US $285, which with the I/O ports and onboard SCSI
is a steal.
 
I'm not sure where they make them, but AUSTEK is based in Texas which means
that you can at least find someone who speaks English for serious tech. support
when you need it.
--
Mark