size and price. i could find all sorts of cheap backplanes but they were large and the smaller ones cost upwards of several hundred dollars some times.
how ever i had an idea the other day diggin through my old stuff.

a riser card

its essentially a blackplane some times with a proprietary card connector at the motherboard side. but i dont need the motherboard side i just need a group of ISA slots bussed together.

so i managed to find a cheap one and everything tones out with a multimeter, i need to find a tester PSU. i dont want to yank my 8088's psu and the 386 one is ded. i might get a small form factor atx and user a converter but i might need -5v so i dont know if i want to go that route. i still need an enclosure of sort but i still need to get a place of my own at the same time