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VLB, or VESA Local Bus, is a high-speed expansion bus from the early 1990s that was primarily used on 486-era computers to connect high-performance peripherals like graphics cards directly to the CPU. It offered significantly faster data transfer than the standard ISA bus, with speeds up to \(160\) MB/s for 32-bit transfers, and was eventually superseded by the PCI bus. 

Key features Speed: Faster than the ISA bus, allowing for a direct, high-speed connection to the CPU.

Data path: A 32-bit bus that provided a much wider bandwidth for peripherals.

Primary use: Mainly used for graphics accelerator cards, though it could also be used for other high-speed devices like hard drive controllers.

Physical appearance: VLB slots were typically an extension of an ISA slot, making them longer than standard ISA slots.

Time period: Popular during the Intel 486 processor generation (1992-1994) before being replaced by PCI.