Hex (Discworld) - Origins and Evolution

Origins and Evolution

Hex has its origins in a device that briefly appeared in Soul Music, created by Ponder Stibbons and some student Wizards in the High Energy Magic building. In this form it was simply a complex network of glass tubes, containing ants. The wizards could then use punched cards to control which tubes the ants could crawl through, enabling it to perform simple mathematical functions.

By the time of the next novel, Interesting Times, Hex had become a lot more complex, and was constantly reinventing itself. Part of it is now clockwork, which interfaces with the ant-farm via a paternoster the ants can ride on that turns a significant cogwheel. Its main purposes were to analyse spells, to see if there were simpler "meta-spells" underlying them, and to help Stibbons with his study of "invisible writings", by running the spells used to bring the writings into existence (these spells must be cast rapidly, and each one can only be used once before the universe notices they shouldn't work). In other words, data compression and information retrieval.

In Hogfather Hex contained several things that nobody remembered installing, and was asking about electricity. It was at around this time that the wizards become concerned that it may be trying to become something they didn't understand.

By The Science of Discworld Hex was capable of "once and future computing;" increasing its abilities simply by deducing that the required processing power would exist eventually. Presumably this requires a high expenditure of magic, as it has not been mentioned again, (at the time, there was a massive excess of magic available due to a near catastrophic overload of the university's experimental thaumic reactor.) This virtual memory appeared as translucent silver towers superimposed onto the real Hex. Hex was sufficiently intelligent by this time not to tell the wizards what it was doing, in case it worried them.

By Unseen Academicals, Ponder Stibbons has placed a mask on the wall to communicate with, even though Hex's voice seems to come from everywhere as it travels in blit space, (although Ponder comments "somehow, well, it feels better to have something to talk to.")

By the time of The Science of Discworld II: The Globe Stibbons had hooked it up to the University's clacks tower, and it worked out all the codes, meaning the University can now use the clacks for free, and has the Disc's first modem. (The legal issues have been carefully considered by Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully, who concluded that 'no-one was going to find out, so they may as well do as they please'.) It is, however, debatable whether-or-not the Patrician, Lord Havelock Vetinari, knows.

In The Art of Discworld, Pratchett explains that "the wizards invented something sufficiently computer-like that computerness entered into it."