Curt Sampson writes:
> I'm using the ASUS 486SP3-G pretty happily. My only real complaint
> about it is that it has only two SIMM slots. On the other hand, it
> does have a VLB slot which is handy if have an old video card or
> something like that around.

> ASUS makes a similar motherboard without the VLB slot but with a
> built-in NCR controller instead of the IDE.

Actually....

The PCI/I-486SP3G has 4 SIMM sockets (although you must pair your
SIMMs, but you get the benefit of memory interleaving - making it one
of the fastest 486 boards around for memory access - better than a lot
of cheap pentium boards too), 3 PCI sockets, 4 ISA sockets, onboard
NCR 53c810 SCSI, onboard SuperIO (IDE, floppy, 2 x 16550, parallel).
This board is the best 486 PCI board on the market - although ASUS
don't make them anymore (unless you order >1000 off them), I suspect
because it was serious competition to their pentium market. It works
great under *BSD, DOS, W95, Linux, etc. I've owned one of these for 12
months. If you can get a supply of one, buy it in preference to any
other 486 PCI board (and if you don't have any VLB, buy it even if you
don't need PCI right now - it will be worth it.)

The 486PVI-SP3 has 2 SIMM sockets, 2 PCI, 1 VLB, 4 ISA, onboard
SuperIO (q.v). It has the BIOS for the PCI NCR SCSI daughterboard 
that ASUS make (SC-200), which means you just plug in a board to get
SCSI. Unfortunately, the PVI-SP3, an SC-200, and any ethernet card
seem to *not* work together at all. Apparently the AHA2940 works OK,
but it surprised me that ASUS couldn't get their two products to work
together reliably. I bought one of these Dec '95, and it's about to be
sold.

(I wanted a second 486 PCI m/b because I have a second PCI video card
and spare 486-66 CPU. After trying the GiGA board - which has a weird
double bounce problem with NetBSD and the enter/return key, and the
PVI-SP3, I gave in, bought an ASUS P55TP4XE, 256K pipelined burst SRAM
cache, and P90 CPU. Works like a charm with the SC-200 I bought with
the PVI-SP3. So, I'm selling the PVI-SP3 and the 486-66...)