  We present new experimental data on directed flow in collisions of Au+Au,
Xe+CsI and Ni+Ni at incident energies from 90 to 400A MeV. We study the
centrality and system dependence of integral and differential directed flow for
particles selected according to charge. All the features of the experimental
data are compared with Isospin Quantum Molecular Dynamics (IQMD) model
calculations in an attempt to extract information about the nuclear matter
equation of state (EoS). We show that the combination of rapidity and
transverse momentum analysis of directed flow allow to disentangle various
parametrizations in the model. At 400A MeV, a soft EoS with momentum dependent
interactions is best suited to explain the experimental data in Au+Au and
Xe+CsI, but in case of Ni+Ni the model underpredicts flow for any EoS. At 90A
MeV incident beam energy, none of the IQMD parametrizations studied here is
able to consistently explain the experimental data.
