ITX Llama: A Brand New PC for 1990s DOS Games!

[@fluxrez]

I was lucky enough to snag one of these when they were first made. Amazing board. The virtual floppy drive makes things so easy.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Totally agree! It was a great surprise when I first turned the system on - and it booted straight to the Win98 startup disk! 😎

[@SBF_FTX593]

This takes me back. This is amazing. The creator of this device is actually a god damn global hero.

[@crazyfrogextended]

The makers of those disgustingly fake emulator machines should take note. This is how you do it.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

100% agree! Amazing that Eivind could put this together in his spare time! 😎

[@jamesfmackenzie]

100% agree!

[@excitedbox5705]

This is amazing and really brings back memories. These days we don't really get to experience the types of massive performance increases that were truly mindbending when the previous gen was the top of the line of what was possible. That joy of plugging in a sound blaster for the first time or new GPU. It wasn't just about increasing performance by a few frames. It opened up whole new worlds of possibilities.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Couldn't agree more! Glad this rekindled some happy memories for you (it did for me too!)

[@Nuevo_El_Nagual]

I want this board so badly

[@HammysHangout]

Same, seems a lot of people are interested, sadly i don't think the creator ever plans on doing another run of them.

[@mmuller2402]

Thats a joke?​@@HammysHangout

[@taiga1295]

@@mmuller2402 no

[@severussnape8544]

@@mmuller2402 If you read the vogons post, the creator makes it clear he won't make a new batch, but will open source the hardware for self assembly. So, bad news and good news.

[@bm-cy7ek]

You shall not buy

[@1337Shockwav3]

"No compromises" no physical ISA slot, nor LPT Still has a lot to offer and seems like a nice project overall - love the Ethernet jack.

[@playy1797]

I wished it did have a physical ISA slot and a Parallel port

[@splitprissm9339]

@@playy1797 Somebody savvy enough in their localities' secondhand (fleamarket/pawnshop/craigslist...) scene to get their hands on ISA soundcards will probably have an easy time getting their hands on period correct PC parts too.

[@eekee6034]

I'm sure people could retrofit ISA and LPT in the same way they used to upgrade Atari STs to 4MB, fit 68020 030 and even PPC into Amigas, etc. There weren't slots for those, they had to fit breakout sockets and solder some of the connections, or in some cases solder all of the connections.

[@jurgen_haan]

@@playy1797 So do I; I still have an old SB16 ISA card laying about, but no slot to fit it in. I've looked at those weird industrial chinese boards which have ISA slots, but they're more geared towards old factory hardware. There's also USB to ISA converters, but they lack hardware interrupt support, so a soundcard will not work in those. A variant of this board with an actual 16 bit ISA slot or a breakout ISA board would be cool.

[@se6369]

A modern 64 bit CPU would be cool too, so you could dualboot DOS and Windows 11 on it (I know you can do that on many modern computers anyway, but DOS compatibility probably won't be great)

[@guderian557]

Awesome project. Thanks for the video!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for watching! Glad you enjoyed it! 😎

[@jwoody8815]

Awesome!! Id love to have one of these for my rare Voodoo Banshee 32MB Card.

[@Kraaketaer]

As someone who grew up with these games and wants to play them again, but doesn't have the space for an actual retro pc in a small apartment, I've been waiting for something like this to show up for ages. It's wonderful to see it arrive, and for it to be as good as this is, but it's a damn shame it's not available after the first group buy. I really hope there will be more, though of course I understand the person behind the project not wanting to take on the stress and financial burden of organising something like this. Still, as much as it sucks to say, that makes me think that my most likely source for one of these or something similar will be Aliexpress at some time in the not too distant future, as with the schematics being open sourced no doubt someone there will put them up for sale. And I would SO much rather pay the people behind the project than some random Aliexpress vendor.

[@jimbotron70]

Meanwhile use a software virtual machine.

[@damian9303]

Might as well be, that’s typically what factories end up mass producing these things once the schematics become open-sourced. There’s the Pocket386 as-is but since I already own a Libretto I was more interested in the now discontinued Hand386 since it was in a GameBoy form factor. They’re the only real alternative I could’ve gotten for the WeeCee which is a predecessor to this project, or at least an inspiration I’d imagine.

[@LusRetroSource]

What an amazing project. I need this!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for the kind message Lu! I very much enjoyed your ITX Llama video too! And sounds like you got in on the latest group buy? Congrats!

[@ctrlaltrees]

I really love this. As others have commented, PCI is an interesting omission but with the various audio headers and onboard networking I'm not sure what PCI cards I'd actually add - perhaps a Voodoo card, although of course AGP versions were available. I'm guessing that going with ITX limited the design to one slot so I think AGP makes sense for those later Win9x games that are too much of a stretch for MiSTer. What a cool project!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Yep, it definitely has a bit more grunt than the ao486 core on MiSTer. I actually have a Voodoo 3 AGP running with this board now - it even copes with Quake 3 OK. One for the next video!

[@Lady_Zenith]

This is not a native AGP implementation. Its PCI-E bridged to PCI running at 66Mhz. Its what the author declared and lets hope it really runs at 66. In that case its perfect for 3DFX cards. If only at 33 as PCI it would mean slight bottleneck, but not that much with this CPU. On non 3DFX it would be somewhat larger impact as they utilized the AGP bus more. Also, there seem to be compatibility issues, Nvidia cards do not work at all under windows for example. That being said, the author posts some benchmarks on Vongos and this thing performs somewhere on the level of Pentium MMX200-233. On non FPU heavy games it runs betters, so it behaves more like a Cyrix MII than anything else, so, any strong video cards makes no sense anyway. The author should have went with PCI instead, he even has PCI design done but still the AGP board seems to be more prevalent. I wold rather see micro ATX board with few PCI slots where one can get S3trioV2 + Voodoo2 with it. That would be the ideal combo for legacy glide compatibility, and also, Voodoo2 has the smallest CPU overhead of the old 3D cards.

[@rorychivers8769]

Personally I'm always satisfied by emulation or even source ports/remasters of old DOS games, but even still, it is really awesome that someone is passionate enough to make the ultimate modern-retro DOS machine. If this were capable of being shrunk down to pi size, it would be the perfect thing to put in my modded mini PC "radio".

[@jimbotron70]

Eventually it will.

[@hycron1234]

I've been waiting for someone to put something like this together. Incredible!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Wobble2007]

Pipe dream for me is, an all-in-one X86 SBC, complete with a button clock-able CPU @ up to 33Mhz-2Ghz, with a built-in Z80 & 68000 + OPL3 + RISC processors for coprocessor duties inc audio, MIDI FPGA, scaler FPGA, and an FPGA for raster tasks that has Voodoo, ATi & Nvidia cores complete with a 400Mhz RAMDAC. Give it a huge L1 an L2 CPU cache for hyper low latency, SRAM ROM & SD RAM drives for ultra low latency I/O, a built-in 32GB SLC base SSD NAND. AN ITX port & AGP port + PCI port.

[@ezgoodnight]

Great video, loved it. This project looks incredibly cool.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@ArnieMcStranglehold]

I LOVE this as a project. I grew up with DOS games, being a 90's kid, and as time progresses, it becomes more and more difficult to not only play some of these games, but even just get them running and functional. Finding old PCs is difficult, and they pull a lot of power, and make a lot of noise. This is... everything I want. Hearing those soundblaster tests for Duke3D, then the final test, just.. my jaw hit the ground. My dad had a PC that made sound that good... it was amazing for games. I'm sending this video to him, I'm sure he'll wind up picking it up at some point. I wonder if he still has that old 3DFX Voodoo 4 card...

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Glad this brought back some great memories! I really like the ITX Llama. Next up I’m going to play The Dig 😎

[@ReGarage]

@@jamesfmackenzieone of the best games ever

[@sleightlywhee]

Actually, you might surprised to know that older computers really didn't use very much power. The CRT monitors did pull quite a bit, but the power hungry CPUs really weren't much of a thing until the Pentium 4 era, and 3D Accelerator/GPUs weren't really a thing until 1996, and power hungry ones weren't really a thing until probably geforce 4ish era?

[@chupathingy5862]

These x86 compatible industrial systems always crack me up. No matter how bare bones and stripped down they make it. Someone always finds a way to run doom on it.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

😂

[@mikegoggin570]

This looks awesome! I've been hoping someone would release a full-featured DOS-capable system for retro computing.

[@volatile2805]

I never had the best computers as a kid, always middle of the road hardware . Having never originally experienced the games on top end hardware I dont really notice any issues when DOS BOX'in games from my childhood in the 80s and 90s. This is still a cool option for having some dedicated hardware and looks like a fun project.

[@techdistractions]

Thanks for the video 😊Awesome project and it’s impressive to see the level of detail gone into designing the board. Even if this is a limited run the design has been open sourced and will hopefully get further developed

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@ichemnutcracker]

It's amazing to me that integrating an entire RP2040, with jumper headers, is cost competitive with just using a couple of USB-to-PS/2 dongles. I have little doubt that it really is, I'm just amazed that we are at a point in microcontroller technology that a chip that could probably easily emulate an entire 386SX (with a bit of help from a handful of extra chips and some PSRAM) is cheaper than some molded plastic and wires.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

I agree! In fact on the other side of my desk I have a “Pico Micro Mac” - a full 128K Mac emulated on the 2040 😂 github.com/evansm7/pico-mac

[@bitwize]

PS/2-USB adapters from back in the day only worked because USB keyboards and mice were capable of doing PS/2 protocol over the USB pins. Modern keyboards and mice can't do this, and so need conversion hardware. But yeah, bunging an RP2040 in there with some custom programming is cost-competitive with finding or fabricating the specific custom chips to do the job. You can find a lot of RP2040 based custom chip replacements -- for the SID chip, the TI-99/4A video chip, etc.

[@eivindbohler]

The RP2040 with supporting components is only a couple of dollars, as you said - pretty mindblowing! :)

[@lindoran]

I found that interesting too 😊. I don't think you could not have it run a cycle accurate 386 emulator at legacy clock speed -- maybe an 8088 though. Also (in case it's not super obvious) you could not do all the things the sum total the system board does with the pi-pico. I think the biggest issue would be getting enough gpio pins to make the PIO do 32 bit addressing without multiplexing. This is significantly more likely with the 8088, which is already multiplexed. If you tried to do a 386 core you might very well get enough resources to do everything internal to the chip, but then you miss out on the 32bit IO capabilities of the cpu for external devices. The ability to tack on a serial memory is definitely how you solve the low internal ram issue but the IO bottleneck kills it for sure.

[@eivindbohler]

@@lindoran Correct - as far as I know, nobody's ever made an emulated x86 CPU or CPU/RAM/whatever combo that exposes any kind of system bus. I'd say the only way to achieve this would be using a fat and expensive FPGA. Would be orders of magnitude more difficult (and probably expensive) than using one of the Vortex-series SOMs.

[@StariusPrime]

I wish I could still get a hold of one of these, what a great product!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@hurricane31415]

I love that kind of things. Reminds me of the good old days.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Drjebus]

@15:21 I immediately began rocking out. Did not expect that to sound great.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Me too! It sounds amazing! 😂

[@jadedlotuz5095]

This is realy fantastic! I remember my first 486-66DX2 and setting the sound could be a hassle. But this looks so sleek, and optimised. Amazing. I would maybe install a SSD, if I had a USB CD/DVD burner ready. Otherwize I would install a CD/DVD Burner. This is just for legacy, if you have old PC CD roms at hand, and things like that. Cheers.

[@km-xr5im]

A video about building your own ITX Llama would be super useful. Also i hope that some company or enthusiast group will start to manufacture this amazing kit so anyone interested could purchase it, that would be a dream come true for retro computing community. Great video, the most informative and interesting retrocomputing video of this year so far! Many thanks!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for the kind words! Will look into building one from scratch 😎

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@Konsker]

big fan of 90s ms dos games

[@il_nostro_della_segreto]

This is the best thing to happen to retro computing. As more and more older hardware will fail, these boards will be THE way to run older software. Judging by the Vogons thread it's not easy for hardware dummies like me to order a custom PCB, so a thorough video would be much appreciated.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Glad you enjoyed the video! Will try to do the “from scratch” build 😎

[@1337Shockwav3]

Depends on the service, with one major PCB manufacturer (NOT the one with a name close to PCPDAY) it's basically the same as ordering a finished board from a webstore. Regarding the "will fail" the market for retro x86 computing is still very saturated with modern reproductions/compatibles becoming quite present. One of my major projects falls into that category. I'd love to see more *modular* FPGA based stuff. Maybe one day we'd get x86 class computers with CPU daughterboards ranging from 8088 to Pentium 3

[@someguy782]

Except it's not happening in any usable way for most people.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@RobertHall-ef8yf]

DOS gaming was the generation before mine but this project is so cool. Hopefully someone picks it up and sells kits, I would love to play with something like this.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@ozkantuzemen]

Looks interesting however that will feel authentic only if there is a realistic CRT monitor emulation. Still DOS games look very crispy on all settings on modern monitors.

[@DerekPeldo]

Man, I wish that was for sale. I already have a wave blaster and some awesome video cards to go with it.

[@foch3]

It only works with a select few graphics cards though. ATi up to R2XX and Voodoo but No nvidia.

[@DerekPeldo]

@@foch3 that's ok. I have a gazillion video cards. I would be more happy if there was a pic slit for adding an aureal vortex 2 card with a voodoo. It just fits the board name better.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@alanarmstrong2323]

Wow,you got me interested.Missing playing my old games.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@LuisCarlosBolanhosVillalobos]

Awesome project and video! ITS GREAT!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the video! 🙂

[@LuisCarlosBolanhosVillalobos]

@@jamesfmackenzie The whole thing, the video, the tests, the experience, the project are AWESOME... really good stuff. Thanks!

[@josteinkallevik]

Looking foward to your nex video on this board :) :) :) :)

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! 🙂

[@p_mouse8676]

That's an incredible little board! Definitely can be optimized as well. Using a rp2040 for just HID devices is probably even more overkill than the AGP video card 😂😅😊

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Yep! Having great fun with this little machine! Agree on the RP2040! You could probably emulate a 386 CPU on that thing! 😂

[@captainthunderbolt7541]

The Roland Sound Canvas sounds amazing!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Yep! I’m a big fan of the X2GS!

[@Tylonfoxx]

That's really a neat project. Only thing I'm missing is at least a PCI slot or two so I can slap in a good 2D board and a Voodoo - I'd love to see an (m)ATX Llama board

[@derodomtommy3716]

that waveblaster was wild

[@jamesfmackenzie]

It sounds great, right?? I was very surprised (in a good way!)

[@trevorboys9140]

Fantastic video, have a subscription. Yes - I'd love to see a build it yourself / via PCBWay style video.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for the sub! 😎 Will look into JLCPCB/PCBWay!

[@richardzeitz54]

I'm wondering if this might let some of us relive the heady days when we installed Linux for the first time. I remember the excitement of getting it running on a 200mhz pentium 2. There were a few weird games on it back then that would be fun to play again on retro hardware. Not that old DOS games aren't awesome: they are! This looks like a fun project.

[@Dhalin]

As for the question at the end of the video... I would love to play with something like this, though space is always an issue. Would need a KB/M setup, the box looks small enough you could tuck behind a display, need another display etc for a handful of games I'd only peck at here-and-there. I wouldn't mind seeing Xeen running on this with that fricken ridiculously awesome wavetable though.

[@fremenondesand3896]

that sounds like the perfect unreal tournament and other 98SE computer.

[@SkullCommander]

This is very good and actually (for some games), are much better since it has real hardware resources instead software emulated ones

[@treahblade]

To all the people who lament about not being able to buy this, just go buy a slot 1 motherboard. They are cheep on ebay and most times they even give you the CPU for free. They are way way more afordable then a socket 7 board and getting a voodoo3 2000 is not expensive for sound you can get the picogus which is for sale by kit or prebuilt. There are a ton of usb to floopy stuff out there along with sd card to ide as well. All in all your going to spend probably about the same as buying this if not less and you get something authentic. For sound you could even look for a azgalexy board or something that is basically a sb16 in everything but name. I could be misremembering the name there but there were tons of clone sound cards during that time. Only issue is with old games that are CPU bound, but there are tricks for that and luckly the number of them like this is not great.

[@galen__]

15:21 - “Percussion perfection” 👍

[@stulacsystems]

amazing hardware, so many customize ability

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Agree! It’s super cool!

[@stephensalex]

If someone were to re-engineer this into a portable chassis, ie "make a laptop out of this", it would be even more amazing and I'd be in line to buy one. So cool, thank you for documenting this.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Glad you enjoyed! 😎

[@stephensalex]

@@jamesfmackenzie Thank you :)

[@randomexcessmemories4452]

Original hardware > modern retro hardware > emulation I'm actually glad that emulation is taking off, because it means the market for real parts will be flooded and go down in price! Even so, these kinds of projects are super cool too, and I may have to pick this up at some point.

[@another3997]

Sadly it doesn't always work that way. Somehow, beyond a certain age, many computer parts demand a premium even if they're still widely available on the used market. Once a few sellers ask for a certain price, everyone else assumes it's a good idea, and follows suit. 😁

[@randomexcessmemories4452]

@@another3997 Unfortunate, but it is what it is...

[@EmirCesan]

Brings back memories 😊

[@maliggno4198]

This thing is awesome!!

[@leonoliveira8652]

15:21 I was NOT ready XD Wow, I wonder how well this works for OG mugen.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

It’s too awesome! Way better than I was expecting 😂

[@gblargg]

I had to look this up to confirm it's not emulation. The Vortex86EX is a commercial product (I assume for other things like industrial uses) that has a real CPU etc. on a tiny module, with system bus etc. exposed to connect. This is fun to have a motherboard to go with it and work with old DOS and games.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

100% agreed!

[@Zarathustra-H-]

Would be really cool if it had more than one slot, for either main VGA card + Voodoo1 passthrough or Dual Voodoo 2's in SLI.

[@scara1701]

My old AT machines never sounded this good. :D

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Especially the X2GS! Sounds super great! 😎

[@waydegutman7339]

Yep. I want a modern DOS system, to install on bare metal. I would also like to see how well FreeDOS runs on this.

[@quigonkenny]

This sounds like a great idea if you have a case that allows for a second mobo. You could have the modern hardware for modern games (assuming you find any worth playing) and have this for retrogaming.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

I wasn’t even aware that dual mobo cases existed - looking at the corsair 1000d now! Thanks for the tip! I am very tempted! 😂

[@excitedbox5705]

I am surprised they arn't more popular for segregating work and personal computers. Back in the day I had 3 mid towers under my desk running into a switch for the keyboard/mouse and display. It seems especially with work from home or for dev test systems having 2 physical systems would be a huge plus.

[@SireSquish]

I wasn't either! But this raises the question of why anyone would normally want to have 2 PCs in the one case?

[@SireSquish]

Actually nevermind, I think excitedbox gave a good reason there.

[@daniellisy7161]

What I'm looking for is this as a notebook with OLED and mechanical keyboard. If that comes take my money :) in the mean time I run the Book 386

[@nysaea]

what a neat machine!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@SirDimpls]

I love that this has a real AGP port ❤

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Time to add a Voodoo 3! :-)

[@evskeeskee5103]

How about an NVidia Riva TNT2 with 64mb video memory? It was my final upgrade on the old tank bx440-P2@450 oh the good old days of PC building.

[@roycowboy3286]

Still have my first voodoo card. But sadly no way of using it

[@omgitsbats]

It's not a real AGP port. The SoC only supports PCI, so it's an AGP to PCI translation port using a converting chipset. There are some issues with Win98 using AGP features that it can't access due to this conversion process. So some issues with Nvidia drivers and 3DFX drivers have been reported.

[@lechuck3337]

This is awesome! Shame that the creator isn't selling anymore. Hopefully someone out there will take it on with it being open sourced now.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@MrJorgalan]

The problems arise when you have MS-DOS games with audio tracks on CD, which were connected directly via a cable from the CD-ROM drive to the sound card. The game would send commands to play a track, and that's how the music would play. I think this is the Achilles' heel for many of us who want to use real hardware but without relying on the physical media (CD-ROMs) from that era.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Yep, CD audio is a real gap. Especially since many ISO formats are missing it :-( The ITX Llama does have a CD audio header. I’m considering a SATA to IDE adapter, so I can connect an old CD drive with audio out 😎

[@drgusman]

Pretty cool project. The only problem that I find with this kind of items is how expensive they become, they are custom made and running low quantity batches make them very expensive to produce in relation to what you get. For 40-50$ you can get an entire PIII with a GeForce 2 and a real SB16 or AWE64, and if you want to "modernize" it you can add a SD to IDE adapter and a PicoGUS. Still really cool board.

[@eivindbohler]

Try building one for yourself and see how much it'll cost! ;) You're absolutely right though - these are non-commercial hobby projects and far from cheap. The most affordable solution is DOSBox or 86Box or something similar, it'll cost you exactly $0 and be good enough for most things!

[@drgusman]

@@eivindbohler A Pentium III you mean or a Llama? If it is a llama, of course, I didn't meant that they overcharge for it, as I said as this is built in very small batches it costs a lot more, and if you build it yourself you will save some bucks but still will be expensive. But if you mean a PIII... I recently bought an Intel dot station 2300 for 40$ new in its box, never used, I modified the bios and upgraded the CPU to a PIII 1Ghz that cost me 10$, also I bought an Athlon 1800 with a SB16 Vibra and a GF2 TI for 20$...

[@eivindbohler]

@@drgusman I was talking about hobby projects. I'm aware you can (still) get super cheap PIII hardware! :) That'll probably end in a few years though, look at where prices are for 486 machines now compared to 5-10 years ago...

[@drgusman]

@@eivindbohler Yeah, that's totally true, that's why I'm storing some of these, right now people sells them as junk but in some years they will skyrocket in price... Btw, just saw you're the developer of the Llama, kudos man, the project is impressive and as I said, never meant that it was an abusive price, I know how expensive these things are, I do myself developments, mostly for 8 bit computers, specially the ZX Spectrum and some lab tooling that is all on my github, nothing so big of course, but I know how much these things cost :)

[@T3hBeowulf]

This is a fantastic demonstration of the capabilities of this board. I found the original thread on Vogons late last year and assumed it was a novel proof of concept but this demonstrates that it is clearly more. I've got multiple ITX cases I've been loathe to part with, that'd be perfect for something like this. Some questions that come to mind: * I wonder if the onboard RP2040 can be used as a PicoGUS? * I wonder if the ISA bus is accessible and can be attached via a ribbon and backplane? * I wonder if there is a PCI bus that could be exposed. * There is onboard SATA, but is there onboard IDE for an optical drive to support CD-Audio games? * I wonder what JLPCB would charge for a complete assembly?

[@eivindbohler]

I'll answer your questions: 1. No, it's not connected to the ISA bus. Nothing stopping you from modifying the design, though - and adding the PicoGUS components instead of the CS4237B (which, incidentally, is exactly what I'm doing with my in-progress project, the TinyLlama v3). 2. Not on this board, but definitely doable with a redesign. You should note, however, that the ISA bus on the Vortex86EX is stripped of quite a few pins - it only has a single DMA channel, for instance. That very much limits the usefulness of having several add-in boards. 3. Yes, the AGP slot runs off PCI at 66 MHz. There's a single lane (x1) PCI-express gen1 coming out of the Vortex86EX, being converted to PCI by a PI7C9X118 bridge chip. AGP is a superset of PCI, so you can run most AGP cards that support the AGP 1x standard by connecting the physical AGP connector to a PCI bus. 4. Nope, no exposed IDE coming out of the Vortex86EX, unfortunately. I _think_ you might be able to use an IDE optical drive together with a SATA/IDE converter though. 5. Totally depends on the number of boards you order. There's a minimum of 5, and obviously the per-board cost goes down a bit when ordering many at a time. I don't remember the exact amount I paid per board, but I think it was more than $150 and less than $200. Depends on the day-to-day price of many of the components as well, sometimes that will fluctuate quite noticeably.

[@T3hBeowulf]

@@eivindbohler What an incredible response, thank you! * I had not initially considered replacing the Crystal sound chip with PicoGUS components but that is an interesting direction. My curiosity about the ISA bus was specifically related to adding a PicoGUS via ISA to augment the Crystal chip. * Running SATA to IDE (reverse) is a great idea as it should allow IDE optical drives to supply audio output separately. Perfect. * I hadn't considered that AGP is just a superset of PCI. My use case was to add an m3D card next to the AGP slot but I'm not sure if that's a worthy direction to go. I can probably get far more bang for the buck using an AGP based Voodoo3. (I have an m3D, I don't have an AGP Voodoo3 yet...) * If the cost of a full assembly (minus the Vortex SoC itself) is $200-$250 or less, that is fantastic news as I had assumed it'd cost more than that. Thank you for your detailed response! Out of curiosity, do you or @jamesfmackenzie mind if I mirror this thread on Vogons for our future selves and fellow curious to find?

[@chadwolf3840]

Genius

[@jamesfmackenzie]

😎

[@SP95]

11:58 The man secretly built this PC to mostly play Star Citizen Prologue

[@tonibahloni920]

Would love to see a comparison video with Llama vs DosBox

[@evile214]

Thats dope.....im not experienced on building a board or whatever to have my own...but would love to own one anð buy...great video💯🤟🏾

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for the kind words! I may try to build one from the schematics - hopefully sharing that can help some others too!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@Giblet535]

I still have an 8088 based IBM plus a NEC V20 upgrade, and an 80286 PC-AT, a 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium D, Quad-core Pentium, and early Core i7.Nothing sounds like DOS more than a 5-1/4" DSDD diskette drive, buzzing away for five minutes. Can't believe you didn't try out Rise of the Triad. It's very sensitive to non-standard emulation.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for the tip! Will try out ROTT next time!

[@helmargesel3972]

thanks for sharing

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@lloydbenham]

Very interesting. Still looking for a tiny form factor solution that can utilize the Aureal Vortex 2 PCI sound card, and possibly keep AGP functionality. I can see this likely won't work.

[@stubby5510]

I would love to get one of these. I’d love to play Trophy Bass 2 on one. It’s a speed sensitive game, and I’ve never gotten any type of emulation to work quite right.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@ironhead2008]

It's unfortunate that these things are de facto unavailable. It damn near hits all of the marks. About the only thing I'd add is an LPC header so you can use an ISA slot breakout board in the second slot inherent in the ITX standard. Even better would be a standard PCI slot and ISA slot on an extended board. You wouldn't be able to use both at the same time, but it would let you play around with early PCI based 3D accelerators, like the faster EDO based Virge chips, the Rendition Verite, or even a Voodoo 1. But as is, it's an amazing accomplishment: a nice dos and win9x gaming rig that you can hook up to the living room tv. Oh well, I guess my P5GX-M based rig running at 300mhz with 256 megs of ram with a voodoo 1, an ever changing primary card (right now a Rage Pro Turbo All-in-wonder), and a memory maxed Sound Blaster 64 will have to do ;p

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@cesaru3619]

hard drive clicker is the most geeky nerdy thing ever made

[@jamesfmackenzie]

😂

[@Michael.Werker]

This thing has LOTS of potential, but the missing floppy controller bothers me. I would like a programmable floppy controller like the Paula chip in the Amiga. It can read and write lots of formats just by creating a mountlist. If you need something more for a DOS system, get an industrial VIA board. These have extremely power-saving processors comparable to the Pentium ///. The boards are ITX, but better equipped: - VIA C3 or EDEN CPU up to 1 GHz - 1 GB 133 MHz DDR3 RAM socket - 2 IDE ports - Floppy Controller for two drives - AGP graphics with 3D and MPEG2 accelerator - LVDS, VGA, Composite and S-Video output - Serial, IR and Parallel ports - PS/2, USB, Ethernet - PCI port - Some have Firewire or Cardbus

[@sergeantsapient]

What kind of expansion port bus does it use?

[@Michael.Werker]

There are lots of insdustrial VIA ITX boards. I have an EPIA M II. It has a PCI bus, and on the ATX panel a CardBus (PCMCIA) and CompactFlash port. Onboard is next to the usual stuff one serial, one LPT (parallel), one IR, one SMBus connector. And of course the floppy connector. A gameport is not available. The RCA jack can be switched between composite video or S/PDIF with a jumper.

[@Michael.Werker]

If you want ISA, then check out industrial Single Board PC's. You need a PCI/ISA backplate. The SBC comes in the middle, providing a PCI bus on one side and ISA on the other. I have several SBC's, one with a Pentium I, several with a Pentium /// 1.4 GHz, and one with socket 775 modified to use a low-power quad core Xeon L5408 socket 771 and 8 GB RAM. It's no problem to run Windows XP with an ISA Soundblaster AWE64 Gold.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

@@Michael.Werker by awesome coincidence, my latest video was on exactly this topic! 🙂

[@drewpaschal9294]

Would be great for programming old Motorola or Harris radios!

[@JimProfit357]

Sweet baby Jesus, can you imagine if the concept could be adapted into a GPD Win Mini-sized laptop...

[@The1stDukeDroklar]

I remember when this was state of the art.

[@viscuine]

amazing !

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for watching! :-)

[@cfbmoo1]

It's things like these I really wish I could find in stores easier as a complete product.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@xXYannuschXx]

Slightly OT, but when you mentioned sound cards I had to think of the fact we barely have them anymore, especially not "true" soundcards that did hardware acceleration. Good audio processing has somehow become a very rare occurance in games, with only a few outliers like Alien Isolation (who created their own audio solution for that game).

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Agree! Dedicated sounds cards have definitely gone the way of the dodo :-( I’m interested to learn more about Alien Isolation! What did they do that was custom?

[@xXYannuschXx]

@@jamesfmackenzie They developed their own audio solution that did real time reverb, depending on the layout of the levels and the source of the sound. None of it was "off the shelv" tech and completely developed in house (apparently because no current audio system satisfied them)

[@jamesfmackenzie]

@@xXYannuschXx Wow! Very impressive! And another reminder to final play Alien Isolation! 🙂

[@xXYannuschXx]

@@jamesfmackenzie I can highly recommend it :) I would recommend however to use the graphics INI tweaks and TAA injection. With current systems you can get alot more graphical fidellity out of the game. PS: they also did some magic with the lighting system, where they used dynamic cubemaps (rendered during run time) to have dynamic radiosity; the light practically bounces around corners, like it would do with current day ray tracing methods. Its mind boggling how far ahead they were with this game.

[@eekee6034]

The OSDev wiki is full of info on how to develop OSs for BIOS-PCs; that's basically the community's roots, yet on the forums for the last 6 or 7 years, every time someone says they want to develop a new OS for x86-32, there's always lots of people insisting the architecture is going away. This insistence isn't quite so strong as it was, but I think I might post a link to this anyway. 😈

[@jamesfmackenzie]

😎

[@cmdrarcturus8197]

Real smart of Ivan to make the AGP slot a 2x for real Voodoo cards. Can't wait to see what this baby can do with the modern remake of the Voodoo5. Additionally, are there plans for more support for more sound devices, such as the Innovation SSI-2001, Tandy 3-Voice, C/MS and GUS?

[@jamesfmackenzie]

On the “next generation” Llama, I believe Eivind will remove the crystal chip and instead use a RP2040 for a built-in PicoGUS 👍🏻

[@matti157]

The perfect evolution is a secondary microsd slot to read floppy images and cd iso

[@jamesfmackenzie]

That would be a great addition!

[@EvanBThompson]

I love that this project exists although it's only going to appeal to a minority. I was lucky enough to get one but sadly have not yet put it together. Waiting on picking up a voodoo 3 card at my parents.Your video will help a lot with putting it together as really clear instructions. I've followed it from it's original incarnation as a credit card sized PC! The only change I would change would have been to replace the sound hardware with an ISA slot and then include the sound hardware as an addon card. That way I could try GUS cards, but a small issue. Would love to know what case you are going to use.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for the kind words and good luck with your own build! I plan to add a case in my next video - still looking at options!

[@AndrewTubbiolo]

Dang! Everything except a parallel port!

[@Chris-yc3mm]

Would love to purchase one and then have a slightly bigger board with both pci and isa expansions. Micro atx i think.

[@tilla77]

Excitement when I watched this immediately quashed when i realised you can't buy one.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

@@tilla77 Yes, unfortunately the initial run of boards is over 😢 However! The design is open sourced and available on GitHub. So you could use a service like JLCPCB or PCBWay to build one for you. Would you be interested in a “build your own” video?

[@PadPoet]

@@jamesfmackenzieI would!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

@@PadPoet OK! Will see what I can do!

[@tilla77]

@@jamesfmackenzie Definitely!!

[@PadPoet]

@@jamesfmackenzie Awesome, take your time!

[@pmNCC-1701]

I like it... I have been building computers since the early 80's. Even though I use the modern Apple and Windows operating systems, my job is to keep old computers like DOS and Windows 98 and other operating systems running... Believe it or not, my company has been in business since 1960. They rely on MSDOS and Windows 98 to keep their old equipment like heat ovens running... It is hard to find new old hardware that is reliable... Nicely done... I want one... Where can I buy this board? =8-)

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@ptonpc]

Looks good.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Glad you enjoyed the video! 😎

[@Zuhna]

I waited through the whole video to hear the duck boot sound. Oh well. Awesome hardware. I really want one. 👌

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Haha! My apologies, I should have gone with the ducks! 😂

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@cianmoriarty7345]

Wild how SoundBlaster compatibility is the missing piece. In the Nineties we would have thought that would outlive the heat death of the universe 😮

[@jamesfmackenzie]

100% agree! I’m glad there are options like this out there 😎

[@saschaschneider6543]

Super interesting product and really well done video. Please test GTA with 3dfx.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Will do!

[@drg5352]

Honestly, I'd be more interested in it for Windows 98 than DOS. DOS games are by an large much easier to get going these days, while there's a large subset of Win9x games which simply don't work in the current Windows malware OS, or even WINE. I'd definitely use it as an all purpose DOS machine as well; but there's quite a few Win9x games that I'd like to play that aren't really playable these days without an old system. I wonder whether you could boot from a SATA drive instead of the MicroSD slot? It'd be one thing if this was built out into a portable hand held system, but for a desktop, I'd rather have a regular SSD, or heck maybe even embrace the old school with some spinning rust. You can still get 500GB or 1TB hdds in 2.5" or 3.5" form fairly cheaply new. SSDs aren't much more expensive, but old school is old school.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

You can connect an SSD to the SATA port, it works great and is definitely recommended for Windows since it hammers the swap file. The processor is best suited for DOS, though. It’s similar to a P233 MMX in performance, which is a little slow for many Win98 games

[@SweUnpoor]

Sad you can't buy one....

[@jamesfmackenzie]

There is some hope! 😅 Eivind open sourced the design schematics on GitHub. So you could use a service like JLCPCB or PCBWay to build you own 😎 More details here: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480 Good luck!

[@PXAbstraction]

​@@jamesfmackenzieBut not with all the chips installed, right?

[@jameslangridge8849]

​@@PXAbstraction Those sites will allow you to have them supply and install chips but iirc the price goes up substantially. I hope someone does another group buy to pull down the price somewhat 🤞

[@jamesfmackenzie]

@@PXAbstraction they can make the PCBs and do the assembly too (i.e. install the components to the PCB). Provided they have all the components in stock, they should be able to build you a complete board. I’m tempted to try myself - if people are interested!

[@SurrogateBrain]

@@jamesfmackenzie Here's one vote for "I'm Interested!"

[@OCTAGRAM]

It would be nice to integrate fast DOS device like this with MiSTer FPGA for other platforms. Share MiSTer's CRT shaders with DOS. Share MiSTer's MIDI abilities with DOS. And put everything into ATX. I would like one drive bay to be occupied with CD(BluRay?). I would like to have MT-32 display in another drive bay. Some games can print something there. And sound mixer controls would be handy there. Finally, third drive bay, maybe smaller 3"5 bay with TapTo NFC hidden inside decorative floppy reader. And decorative floppies with TapTo tags. And maybe some universal card reader. I currently have one by Akasa, in big 5"25 format

[@ChadDoebelin]

Hey James! that's neat!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks!

[@rs.matr1x]

USB-C power would be better and you could put a real floppy drive and/or IDE header where the ATX header used to be. Thin ITX would also be my preference. But those are minor quibbles, this seems like a pretty nice for gaming at least. Who knows there might be some old video rental store still running their POS on DOS that could use something like this as well. I suppose a USB Floppy drive would be sufficient for most people. an onboard USB 2.0 header would also be handy to plug in a 3.5" compact flash/SD card reader.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Great ideas! I’m looking into whether I can use an AGP riser cable to make an ultra thin build 😎

[@foch3]

@@jamesfmackenzie Someone on VOGONs already did it and had the Voodoo VGA out coming out the I/O shield.

[@ActionRetro]

I want to run BeOS on this 😅

[@jamesfmackenzie]

It’s got a whole 128MB or RAM *and* a Radeon 9200 SE. Imagine how fast that 3D teapot will spin! 😂

[@enilenis]

It's important to have modernized retro alternatives for preservation sake. I still prefer gaming on legit old hardware, but it's not for everyone. I wish they made a straight ISO to IDE hardware emulator. That would solve so many CD storage issues. So far, we have compact flash to IDE and flash to floppy.... and flash to 50 pin SCSI. We don't have proper hardware based CD/DVD emulation alternative that can replicate copy protection. I have a bootable ISO to bootable media emulator, but it's UBS based. Can't be mounted in DOS. I wish the ISA was on the motherboard itself, but at least they've got an AGP going. Better than nothing. Cool machine. I'd love to have one some day.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

100% agree on the CD side. Up until now I’ve been using software emulators like SHSUCDHD - but it’s not a replacement for the real thing :-(

[@TranquilVision]

Only option currently is to assemble your own? Wonderful. /s

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A late reply on this, but with some good news! A community member is planning to build and make the ITX Llama available for general sale. You can purchase here: retrodreams.ca Find more details on the Vogons forum: www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=93480

[@lopwidth7343]

Golden era directx < 8.1 games, like unreal and monster truck madness are a much more neglected era of games that really need era specific windows 98SE hardware. This is awesome for DOS era, and id buy a keyboard PC Ala raspberry pie 400 with full hardware 1:1 compatibility any time for those two eras coupled with a fully compatible DOS 70hz resolutions and up to 1024x768@120hz 15" CRT