Hex (Discworld) - Other Discworld Computers

Other Discworld Computers

According to The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch, another Hex-like machine has been invented by the smaller magical university of Braseneck College. This is much simpler than the original, however; according to Stibbons, Hex is technically a Very Big Thing, while the Braseneck device is barely a Quite Big Thing (the next step up would be a Great Big Thing, every particle of the universe being modelled within it; apparently these terms are quite exact, as when the Lecturer in Recent Runes postulated that the Braseneck wizards would try and build an Even Bigger Thing, Ponder Stibbons corrected him. Apparently a Very Big Thing is capable of pushing boundaries twice as big up to three times as far as a Quite Big Thing).

The Hex-like machine was mentioned again in Unseen Academicals, as constructed by the staff of the Higher Energy Magic Building at Braseneck college, and was given the name Pex. Pex was apparently powered by chickens rather than ants, a technology which was considered superior as the eggs it provided were edible. Adrian Turnipseed was responsible for its construction and maintenance, using various technologies he had learned from Ponder while helping to build the original Hex. However, he had apparently not learned well enough, as a seventy-foot chicken broke out of the Higher Energy Magic Building and demolished much of Pseudopolis—and presumably Pex as well.