More importantly, VGA text modes cannot be exactly simulated with standard VGA/VESA graphics modes. The people who wrote fake Blue Screen of Death joke programs for Windows NT discovered this years ago.

The article author is explicitly looking for 720 by 400, not 640 by 400, and is trying to obtain that using Linux mechanisms that select graphics modes and do not configure the hardware to be in an actual text mode. i.e. fbcon rather than vgacon.