[MBCook]

Is it possible it could’ve been EISA and that’s why it seemed different?

I can’t remember if those were available on 386s or started in the 486 era.

[Zardoz84]

A Local bus ? The VESA Local Bus (VLB) was a thing in 486 boards and, I think, early Pentium boards. but was predated by privative local buses. I don't know if there was one on 386 boards.

[TheAmazingRace]

EISA was typically reserved for higher end server and workstation type motherboards. Consumer-grade PCs never really got to experience EISA.