The ITX Llama Does DOS Right

“Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell is more than just a sappy love song, it is also the anthem for retro gamers who swear that the only authentic way to experience the classics is on original hardware. But the hardware that powered these early machines is getting older and harder to come by all the time. Moreover, with regular use the likelihood of hardware failures goes up, so we don’t want to push these systems too hard or they will disappear before we know it.

Software emulation of hardware platforms is a good option, yet for the true aficionado it often leaves much to be desired. Fortunately, when it comes to the DOS and early Windows games of yesteryear, there is some middle ground. YouTuber James Mackenzie recently did a deep dive on the ITX Llama, which is a brand new PC that was purpose-built for playing DOS games without any compromises. Because of this board’s clever design, you can have an authentic retro gaming experience on real — albeit modern — hardware.

The creator of the ITX Llama, Eivind Bohler, thought of just about everything an avid retro gamer could possibly want in a DOS machine. It is centered around a Vortex86 system-on-a-chip that has a 32-bit x86-architecture microprocessor with a full 486SX instruction set and FPU. Performance of the chip is comparable to a Pentium Pro, and the clock speed can be set between 100 and 500 MHz.

When running more modern hardware, sound card compatibility is especially tricky. These cards were connected to ISA ports in earlier systems, which have long since gone the way of the dodo. But by integrating a Crystal CS4237B chip onto the ITX Llama, gamers can get an authentic-sounding Sound Blaster experience. For those that want to go with other sound options, additional ports exist to accommodate them as well.

With analog audio output, a game port, serial and PS/2 ports, and an Ethernet jack, the ITX Llama has just about whatever you need for adding peripherals. There are also some modern additions, like the ability to use an SD card as a hard disk (don’t worry — an onboard PC speaker will mimic the sounds of a mechanical disk) and a serial-to-WiFi adapter for multiplayer gaming without a dial-up modem. And if you are interested in MIDI emulation, there is a 40-pin header where you can attach a Raspberry Pi to handle the job.

Mackenzie walked through the setup of an ITX Llama system in the video. The first step is to install a graphics card in the board’s AGP slot. In this case an ATI Radeon 9200 SE was used, but you can use whatever era-appropriate hardware you have on hand. Next, a custom BIOS was installed by plugging in a USB drive, then Windows 98 (and DOS) was installed on an SD card using the system’s virtual floppy drive — the BIOS install also includes virtual Windows 98 installation disks so you don't have to track your own down.

At that point the computer was up and running, so the only thing left to do was install some games via a USB drive. With performance 10 times that of a 486DX-33, games like Doom were no problem for the ITX Llama. But for games like Wing Commander that are sensitive to clock speed and run too fast under such conditions, the clock speed of the processor can be slowed down and the CPU caches can be disabled. This brings the performance of the system more in line with a 386.

The ITX Llama is a very unique system and might be just what you are looking for to complete your retro gaming setup. Check out the video below to see everything that this little board can do.