Lu

ITX-Llama – A New Motherboard for Retro PC’s

Posted on by Lu

The ITX-Llama is a PC motherboard designed to be as close as possible to the creators, Eivind Bohler, dream PC that could run late-DOS and early Windows 98 software.

Here is some of the hardware and features that the board supports:

  • CPU: The CPU is based on a Vortex86EX system-on-module with 128MB of RAM. It is an x86 compatible CPU with performance that’s similar to a Pentium MMX 233MHz.
  • Sound: Sound is powered by the Crystal CS4237B-based sound card giving you Adlib, Sound Blaster Pro 2 and Windows Sound System compatibility.
    • There is an expansion port to plug in a real OPL3 chip if you’re a purist.
    • A wavetable header is available for using expansion cards that support sampled MIDI playback.
    • Another option for sampled MIDI playback, is connecting a Raspberry Pi running the MT32pi firmware to the 40pin header.
    • Audio ports (line out, line in, microphone in)
    • Digital optical audio out port (“Toslink”)
  • Storage: There is an SD Card slot that can emulate a hard drive. There is also an HD Clicker that will emulate hard drive click sounds when there is activity on the SD card. Additionally, you can also use the built-in SATA interface to connect a CD-ROM drive or SSD.
  • Networking: RJ45 connector for 10/100Mbit ethernet. There is also an ESP8266-based serial-to-Wifi-modem for BBS’ing in DOS, dial-up internet in Windows, etc.
  • I/O: PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors, 2 USB 2.0 ports, RS232 Serial port and Gameport.

That’s just an overview of the ITX-Llama, for more details and demonstrations of the board, the creator has a video on YouTube showing it off. The board is not available for sale, but it is open source so you can send the design files to a service like PCBWay or JLBPCB to have it built for you. A group buy was done about a year ago and now a second group by is being assembled on the ITX-Llama discord, so you can head over there if you’re interested or to discuss the project.

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