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This item is from the PC Hardware FAQ, by Willie Lim and Ralph Valentino with numerous contributions by others. (v1.25).

2.42 Is there any point in putting more than 16M in an ISA machine?

[From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)]

Sure. Even inferior operating systems can use it for something. The question is how much performance it buys. In ISA, the DMA channels and bus-mastering IO cards can only address the first 16 MB. Therefore the device drivers have to copy data up and down or just not use the space. I am told the Linux SCSI drivers know how to do this. I don't know about OS/2 or MSWindows.

 

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