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The worst part about the 486 name was all the varieties, an uninformed consumer could get a real lemon.

The author links to an example:

https://dfarq.homeip.net/ibm-486slc2-cpu-when-a-clone-isnt-a...

You then had the 486 DLCs which were even worse. you'd get companies that sold 386 and even 286 systems with '486' chips, constrained by slow, 16-bit buses, etc.

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The 486DLC was fully 32 bit. The 286/386SX-like model with a 16 bit bus was the 486SLC.

But, even a 486SLC wasn't all that bad at the time. It was still much faster than a 386DX for many things (DOOM, for example).

These AT-like machines limited users to 16-bit ISA cards for expansion, and a 24-bit address bus (16 MB RAM). But how many consumer PCs used more than that, back when your 32-bit bus options were VLB (video only), MCA (IBM only), or EISA (expensive servers/workstations only).

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