The world's worst video card?
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN recommends it as a clear, from-scratch look at how video hardware works, understandable with just basic logic knowledge.
What it is
Ben Eater explains how VGA signals work and builds a breadboard circuit that produces correct sync timing so a monitor recognizes the signal. He then builds toward displaying an image from simple logic chips.
Recommended by 8 HN commenters across 7 different months, 2019 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec dimator · 2019-09 · on “CPU Made from 74HC Chips Is a Glorious Mess”
Ben Eater did a video on driving a VGA display using a breaboard circuit. He builds up to it in his usual amazing teaching style, highly recommend: [this video]
Strong rec Diederich · 2020-01 · on “Show HN: 1.5kb Microkernel for Ben Eater's 6502 Computer”
I'm actually more excited to see a new Ben Eater video on youtube than anything else. His stuff is just fantastic. Even though it's lower level than I've ever worked, it's extremely entertaining and educational. His 6502 series is just great, but I want to highlight another couple of videos he did: "Let's build a circuit that displays an image on a VGA monitor! In this video, I talk about how VGA signals work and build a circuit that provides the correct timing of sync signals so that a monitor recognizes the signal." [this video]
Recommends MarioMan · 2020-02 · on “Brown: color is weird [video]”
Not the same thing, but you reminded me of this since it's in a similar vein. Ben Eater went through the entire process of building a VGA "video card." Anyone with a basic understanding of logic circuits has enough background to understand it. Worth a watch. Part 1: [this video] Part 2: [LINK]
Recommends el_oni · 2020-10 · on “A trip through the Graphics Pipeline (2011)”
Maybe something like Ben Eater's video card series? [this video] If i remember correctly he assembles a gfx card on a bread board. So its fairly fundamental
Recommends dahart · 2020-10 · on “A trip through the Graphics Pipeline (2011)”
This one might be interesting to you: [this video] “The world’s worst video card?” Ben builds a framebuffer display device on a bread board from scratch, you’ll understand what every transistor does at a high level in an hour (don’t miss part 2). That is abstractly what first principles graphics looked like some time ago - pixels were represented by a block of main memory, and the video system simply scanned that memory at the same frequency as the CRT monitor’s beam. I’d say it’s pretty important to remember that what counts as “first principles” graphics has changed over time, and there was a time before frame buffers (the first Pong game was displayed on an oscilloscope) and the way we use fra
Recommends vishnuharidas · 2020-12 · on “NandGame – Build a Computer from Scratch”
Reminds me of Ben Eater's Youtube videos where he builds everything using basic gates on a breadboard. He made a video-card using ICs on a breadboard that fascinated me: [this video]
Recommends fowl2 · 2021-05 · on “The Graphics Gremlin – An Open Source Retro ISA Video Card”
Even further to that end of the spectrum is "The World's Worst Graphics Card"[1] on a breadboard with mostly discrete logic. Fascinating. [1] [this video]
Recommends caymanjim · 2021-06 · on “An interactive look at how a video signal is made”
Ben Eater has a great video[1] about building a video card from simple gates and other basic components. It goes into some detail about how a VGA signal is generated. [1]: [this video]