I wanted real MS-DOS and early Windows 98 compatibility — real Sound Blaster and AdLib support, correct timing, no emulator quirks — without hunting down and babysitting an actual 30-year-old PC. The ITX Llama solves that by being brand new: an open-source motherboard built from scratch around a Vortex86EX system-on-module, purpose-designed to be period-correct DOS hardware rather than a repurposed antique.
Project Notes
| Status | In progress |
| Goal | Build and expand a brand-new, purpose-built DOS/Windows 98 gaming PC — no emulation. |
Picked up a board through one of the project’s community group buys (it isn’t sold through a normal retail channel), and started with the essentials: a new-old-stock Radeon 9200 SE for the AGP-format slot, and flashing the BIOS to set up the board’s Crystal CS4237B audio chip. From there it’s been about exploring what the board’s expansion headers actually enable — starting with adding a Raspberry Pi for Roland MT-32 synthesis via the onboard MIDI header, using the mt32-pi project.
Full board details — specs, audio options, the AGP slot’s real electrical behaviour — live on the ITX Llama hardware page.
Still to come: Windows 98 gaming performance (GL Quake, Quake 3), swapping in a 3Dfx Velocity 100 — the OEM Voodoo-3-in-disguise card — as a more period-appropriate GPU than the Radeon, and moving the build into a newly-bought SilverStone SG13B mini-ITX case.
More details:
