Since your VGA card apparently isn't going to work, send me a PM with your snail mail address and I'll send you one of my old VGA cards that I know will work in an 8-bit slot.
Several years ago, I bought a lot of about 20 or 25 ISA slot VGA cards on Ebay, I paid something between $5 and $10 (plus shipping, of course) for the lot. Most of them are from the 1988-1992 era. Not all of them work in an 8-bit slot, but more than half do. I'll use some of them surely, but not all of them.
Even with the card, you're still going to need an XT compatible keyboard to do anything.
BTW, was it an IBM computer? (The IBM PC series didn't come with an 8 mhz. chip, they were all 4.77 mhz., that's why I had asked about the brand. Somebody could have put an 8mhz. chip in it, but it would still be running at 4.77 mhz).