IBM introduced the MCA in 1987 which came in 16 and 32-bit flavors. It even had a type of plug and play, although it was not called that at the time. This bus was a radical departure from ISA. IBM had hoped to replace the "old" ISA bus and collect royalties from companies who wanted to use MCA in their systems.

MCA is far superior to the ISA bus. However, MCA is not compatible with the older ISA bus. ISA cards can not be used in MCA expansion slots. This bus is considered costly and does not have the variety of expansion cards that ISA enjoys.