World’s Worst Video Card

July 17, 2022

This is my second Ben Eater project. In this video series, Ben talks about how VGA signals work and walks us through building a circuit that provides the correct timing of sync signals so that a monitor recognizes the signal and displays an image stored on an EEPROM.

completed_build
Here is the completed build in all its glory!
Tribute to the man himself (Ben Eater).
Tribute to the man himself (Ben Eater).
Another YouTuber, ElectroBOOM
Another YouTuber, ElectroBOOM
And of course, how can I forget the finch?
And of course, how can I forget the finch?

Parts List

 
Description Quantity
Breadboard 5
22 AWG Solid Tinned-Copper Hook-Up Wire
10MHz full can crystal oscillator 1
680Ω resistor 3
1.5kΩ resistor 3
74LS00 (Quad NAND gate) 3
74LS04 (Hex inverter) 4
74LS30 (8-input NAND gate) 8
74LS161 (4-bit synchronous binary counter) 6
28C256-15 EEPROM 1
DE15 Female VGA breakout connector 1

You will also need a monitor with VGA input, an EEPROM programmer like the  XGecu TL866II Plus, an oscilloscope and a function generator.

This video card displays an image of 100 x 75 pixels with 64 (indexed) colors. 

Schematics

HSync Circuit, Image Credit: Ben Eater
VSync Circuit, Image Credit: Ben Eater
HSync and VSync circuits are connected to an EEPROM which drives a simple resistor DAC (digital-to-analog converter) to generate an image. Image Credit: Ben Eater
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