For people having trouble getting Plug and Play devices to work, the ISA PnP utilities written by Peter Fox are available. Quote from the README:
These programs allow ISA Plug-And-Play devices to be configured on a Linux machine. This program is suitable for all systems, whether or not they include a PnP BIOS.
Commands have been taken from the Plug and Play ISA specification Version 1.0a.
More information on ISA PnP utilities can be found on the website of Peter Fox: http://www.roestock.demon.co.uk/isapnptools/
Please let me know about hardware (not normally supported under Linux) which can be put to work with the aid of these utilities. A list of this hardware will be put in this appendix.