By Efosa Udinmwen

Copyright techradar

Skip to main content

Tech Radar Pro

Tech Radar Gaming

Close main menu

the business technology experts

België (Nederlands)

Deutschland

North America

US (English)

Australasia

New Zealand

View Profile

Search TechRadar

Expert Insights

Website builders

Web hosting

Best web hosting
Best office chairs
Best website builder
Best antivirus
Expert Insights

Don’t miss these

A cautionary tale: hundreds of backers may have lost a total of more than $170,000 backing an 8-SSD subwoofer-like NAS mini PC project on a crowdfunding site

A Chinese GPU vendor you’ve never heard of wants to challenge Nvidia and AMD in the pro market with 24GB VRAM – surely it cannot succeed?

A dual Intel GPU graphics card with 48GB of VRAM has gone on sale for $1200 – now I wonder whether you could plug two of these into a workstation

I didn’t think 4K gaming handhelds were possible, but this DIY Nvidia RTX 4090 model has proved me wrong

Graphics cards with SSD slots are becoming more popular, but I fail to understand why these products actually exist

This is the weirdest looking AI MAX+ 395 Mini PC that I’ve ever seen — and you can apparently hold it comfortably in the palm of your hand

Chinese vendor launches first workstation PC with Intel’s fastest CPU and up to two Arc Pro B60 GPUs, possibly with 48GB of RAM each

Yet another mini PC vendor launches an eGPU — but AOOStar’s Radeon RX 7600XT can be used with a USB 4.0 port and is actually affordable

This fishtank mini PC is the coolest design I’ve seen this year – shame you can’t actually fill it with mineral oil

One of the most ambitious Chinese mini PC vendors has paired a Ryzen 9800X3D CPU with a Pro RTX 5000 Ada MXM GPU – and the results are mindblowing

Time to ditch the pen and paper – Modus now boasts e-paper with 75Hz refresh, enough to challenge even a tablet

Gigabyte isn’t holding back with its new RTX 5090 AI external GPU – but no gamer actually needs this

Microsoft employee uses terrible AI-generated image to advertise for Xbox artists just weeks after massive layoffs

Remember floppy disks? This YouTuber set out to build his own from scratch – see how he got on

This mini PC has two 10Gb Ethernet LAN ports, a fingerprint reader, and can even connect to an external GPU – so remind me again why we need a full desktop PC?

This hardware enthusiast wanted to build the world’s worst graphics card with 128KB ROM – but couldn’t manage to drop to a VGA resolution

Efosa Udinmwen

28 September 2025

The entire build was ugly and essentially pointless

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: GitHub)

Crude GPU design showed random glitches whenever the system attempted memory writes
iNapGPU struggled with environmental noise from simple USB cables
A 12MHz counter overclocked to 20MHz caused constant instability

An obscure project on GitHub shows how a hardware hobbyist tried to construct what he called the “second world’s worst video card,” a text-mode graphics card using only TTL gates.

Working under the handle Leoneq, he released the “iNapGPU” repository to document his experiment.
His goal was to outdo Ben Eater’s “world’s worst video card” by making something even less practical.

You may like

A cautionary tale: hundreds of backers may have lost a total of more than $170,000 backing an 8-SSD subwoofer-like NAS mini PC project on a crowdfunding site

A Chinese GPU vendor you’ve never heard of wants to challenge Nvidia and AMD in the pro market with 24GB VRAM – surely it cannot succeed?

A dual Intel GPU graphics card with 48GB of VRAM has gone on sale for $1200 – now I wonder whether you could plug two of these into a workstation

A minimal design that still exceeded true VGA limits
Despite deliberately using crude methods, he could not reduce the output below a basic VGA resolution.

The project specifications list VGA output at 800 x 600 (actually SVGA) @60Hz, with an accessible resolution of 400 x 300 in monochrome.
The hardware was built from 21 integrated circuits, including counters, NAND gates, and an EPROM working with a small SRAM.
By treating a 1-Mbit EPROM as a 1-bit memory, Leoneq could load up to four character sets of 255 characters each.

Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter
Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!
Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.
However, using tri-state buffers and a basic counter arrangement led to visual artifacts and poor stability.
Even when using a low-capacity memory and avoiding a microcontroller, the design still could not degrade to something below VGA.
Leoneq admitted that the assembly process was awkward, relying on 0.12mm wire on a protoboard rather than a printed circuit board.

You may like

A cautionary tale: hundreds of backers may have lost a total of more than $170,000 backing an 8-SSD subwoofer-like NAS mini PC project on a crowdfunding site

A Chinese GPU vendor you’ve never heard of wants to challenge Nvidia and AMD in the pro market with 24GB VRAM – surely it cannot succeed?

A dual Intel GPU graphics card with 48GB of VRAM has gone on sale for $1200 – now I wonder whether you could plug two of these into a workstation

He described the result as terrible and warned others to “use fpga instead” to avoid similar frustrations.
The HSYNC timer was driven by a 12-bit counter rated for only 12MHz at 15V, yet he pushed it to 20MHz to double Ben Eater’s pixel clock.
He compared only the “ones” of counter outputs instead of full numbers, a shortcut that introduced repeated signals without breaking the display.
The unconventional approach kept the card functional, but it also revealed timing errors and unstable output.
This was never a viable graphics card because image glitches occurred whenever it wrote to memory, as it could not write and read simultaneously.
Also, environmental noise, even from a nearby USB cable, distorted the display.
In addition, the characters lacked clarity due to ROM power and read-time limitations, while unexplained lines appeared in the background.
Leoneq openly labeled the image as ugly and described the entire effort as a “huge waste of time.”
Although the project demonstrated that a crude collection of TTL gates could generate a usable VGA signal, it also shows why modern designers prefer programmable logic like FPGAs.
Leoneq’s repository provides conversion tools and test code for Arduino Mega, but the effort seems more like a technical joke than a practical product.
You might also like

These are the best NAS devices around
We’ve also rounded up the best cloud storage platforms on offer
Microsoft unveils advanced AI cooling which lowers heat, and cuts energy use

Efosa Udinmwen

Freelance Journalist

Efosa has been writing about technology for over 7 years, initially driven by curiosity but now fueled by a strong passion for the field. He holds both a Master’s and a PhD in sciences, which provided him with a solid foundation in analytical thinking. Efosa developed a keen interest in technology policy, specifically exploring the intersection of privacy, security, and politics. His research delves into how technological advancements influence regulatory frameworks and societal norms, particularly concerning data protection and cybersecurity. Upon joining TechRadar Pro, in addition to privacy and technology policy, he is also focused on B2B security products. Efosa can be contacted at this email: udinmwenefosa@gmail.com

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.

A cautionary tale: hundreds of backers may have lost a total of more than $170,000 backing an 8-SSD subwoofer-like NAS mini PC project on a crowdfunding site

A Chinese GPU vendor you’ve never heard of wants to challenge Nvidia and AMD in the pro market with 24GB VRAM – surely it cannot succeed?

A dual Intel GPU graphics card with 48GB of VRAM has gone on sale for $1200 – now I wonder whether you could plug two of these into a workstation

I didn’t think 4K gaming handhelds were possible, but this DIY Nvidia RTX 4090 model has proved me wrong

Graphics cards with SSD slots are becoming more popular, but I fail to understand why these products actually exist

This is the weirdest looking AI MAX+ 395 Mini PC that I’ve ever seen — and you can apparently hold it comfortably in the palm of your hand

Latest in Pro

Qualcomm’s most powerful CPU ever will target AMD’s Ryzen AI+ 395 with 128GB onboard LPDDR5X memory – while Intel has only 32GB integrated memory to contend with

Qualcomm Guardian is its rival to Intel’s popular vPro platform management system – it can even work without Wi-Fi, but I’m not sure whether it’s such a good thing

Watch out – hackers are using AI to make phishing emails even more convincing

Nearly 150,000 patient records exposed in major healthcare data breach – here’s what we know

This graph alone shows how global AI power consumption is getting out of hand very quickly – and it’s not just about hyperscalers or OpenAI

This devious malware has jumped from Meta over to Google Ads and YouTube to spread – here’s how to stay safe

Latest in News

How to watch Ryder Cup 2025 for *FREE* — stream Sunday Singles

Good news for Samsung Galaxy owners – One UI 8.5 could bring these 3 big upgrades

OpenAI responds to furious ChatGPT subscribers who accuse it of secretly switching to inferior models

YouTube Music is testing a new feature that sounds a lot like Spotify’s AI DJ

New Samsung Galaxy Z Tri-fold leaks hint at key software and camera zoom features

NYT Connections hints and answers for Monday, September 29 (game #841)

LATEST ARTICLES

After years away from my guitar, this app has made learning songs easier than I ever thought possible

‘More like a pendulum than a hammer’: The AI chip that can reuse its own energy reaches proof of concept stage – but I don’t think it will be enough to convince hyperscalers to invest

The Nutribullet Triple Prep System is a blender and food processor combo that handled almost every recipe I could throw at it

Good news for Samsung Galaxy owners – One UI 8.5 could bring these 3 big upgrades

Spooky season is nearly here! Here are 9 movies I recommend watching on Netflix, Prime Video and more

TechRadar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

Contact Future’s experts

Terms and conditions

Privacy policy

Cookies policy

Advertise with us

Web notifications

Accessibility Statement

Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street,

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait…