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Hex is the Unseen University's organic/inorganic/magical super-computer, located in the High Energy Magic Building, whose initial components were a mouse-wheel and an ant-colony (the sum in this case is far greater than the parts) tended by Ponder Stibbons and a group of like-minded, spotty, if-only-we-had-anoraks undergraduates. Hex can be cranky, recalcitrant, demand more cheese, occasionally be of use, and exhibit disturbing signs of sentience. Apart from the odd banana, not too much difference from here. Hex makes a major appearance in Interesting Times, Hogfather and The Science of Discworld where it helped facilitate the Roundworld project, and has also been used at other times to do complicated calculations for how exactly a spell is to be performed, or to control the operations of complicated magical instruments.

Hex is started by initialising the GBL (pulling the Great Big Lever), and is basically a thinking-engine. Some people may think that Hex is alive, but Ponder Stibbons soothes his mind on that subject, telling himself that Hex "only thinks that he is alive". Hex started its existence as a very large calculator, using different movements of ants to solve simple math equations, but Hex eventually changed to something much more. Hex now seems to have a life of its own, changing, removing and even adding new parts to itself all the time. It now has an Anthill Inside sticker, a beehive in the next room (for memory storage), a screensaver (an aquarium on a spring), a beach-ball-like thing that goes "parp" every fourteen minutes. Hex is even beginning to ask about electricity.

Hex is able to cast a huge amount of spells in a very small amount of time (similar to early computers that were used to do multiple calculations in a short space of time), thus reducing the need for humans to do so (a source of disgruntlement to the Faculty), and garnering results that it would take a team of research wizards weeks, months or even years to get.

Hex was unfornately sent daft by a conversation with the Bursar during Hogfather. This was cured soon after by Mustrum Ridcully with the use of dried frog pills (Ridcully wrote, hurriedly, "L-O-T-S-O-F-D-R-Y-D-F-R-O-R-G-P-1/4-L-L-S"). If Hex believes what it's told, and it's told that it's had lots of Dried Frog Pills, then Hex will believe that it's had lots of Dried Frog Pills.

Also during Hogfather, Hex revealed that it has the ability to believe in things such as the Hogfather, and even wrote a list to the Hogfather. Death (who was the stand-in for the Hogfather at the time) had no idea what most of the items were, but apparently succeeded in giving Hex its new FTB (Which was abbreviated, to the embarrassment of Stibbons, from Fluffy Teddy Bear), and now Hex throws a tantrum whenever the FTB is taken away.

Hex is Ponder Stibbons' main field of work (technically making him the Disc's only I.T. expert), but Stibbons is constantly worried about it. Stibbons never knows what's going to happen next with Hex, and sometimes even catching himself calling Hex "he", which is, of course, ridiculous, as Hex is a machine.

[edit] Annotations

A lot of the technical jargon that Ponder and the team use around Hex is based on computer-speak on Roundworld.

• There is a motto attached to Hex saying Anthill Inside, a reference to Intel Inside.

• Hex's words, all written on a bit of paper using a quill on a complicated arm system, usually have three + symbols before and after the actual words, an example being:

+++Error. Redo From Start+++ (Although, none of the wizards can find out who Redo From Start is)

(This may be an allusion to the Hayes command set codes, originally for modems, which used +++ to switch between data mode and command mode. This resulted in commands and representations of them often being prefixed with the switch string, such as the commonly seen +++ATH0, meaning "switch to command mode and hang up the connection".)

• While Hex is pondering a question, it will shut down all other functions, and an hourglass on a spring will descend and slowly turn, indicating that its runtime is being applied to the issue. This is akin to the cursor transforming into a picture of an hourglass in some OSs.

• Hex occasionally demands cheese for his/its mouse. If the mouse is not fed, Hex stops working. This is a reference to the Roundworld 'mouse', which controls the cursor.

• Another interesting fact is that if Hex's FTB (Fluffy Teddy Bear, a gift from the Hogfather) is removed, Hex writes +++Mine! Waah!+++, once again implying sapience. The fact that Hex even believed in the Hogfather is proof of Hex's increasing "mind".

• Sometimes when Hex is baffled by a question, it produces random error messages - as incomprehensible as Roundworld computers' "An error of type 5307 has occured.' or '[Something] failure', but with a more arcane bent. 'Eternal domain error' = 'Internal domain error'.

• Also, when asked "Why?", it was predicted that Hex would either blow up or say something like "+++Out Of Cheese Error ???????+++", but instead, Hex wrote "Because".

• When Hex appears to 'catch' the Bursar's daftness, its behaviour may echo the Red Dwarf concept of 'computer senility': an android which had contracted it preferred to be known as 'Ramses Niblick III Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops! Where's My Thribble?' - Hex says 'Whoops! Here Mr Jelly!'.