Real World Connections
The inspiration for Hex, which evolves through seemingly unexplainable upgrades like extra cheese, the FTB protocol, a CWL (Clothes Wringer from the Laundry, for crunching numbers and other things), and "small religious pictures" (icons), came from Pratchett's own early experiments with upgrades on his ZX-81.
The name is a play on two meanings of the word "hex": a hex can be a magical spell, and "hex" is slang for hexadecimal, the base 16 system used to simplify the representation of binary numbers and is widely used in the IT world. "hex" ("6" in Greek) also denotes the number of legs ants have.
In 2001, a new Silicon Graphics Origin 2800 supercomputer was installed as part of the University of Leicester's Centre for Mathematical Modelling and, with Pratchett's blessing, named HEX.
Read more about this topic: Hex (Discworld)
Famous quotes containing the words real, world and/or connections:
“The real American type can never be a ballet dancer. The legs are too long, the body too supple and the spirit too free for this school of affected grace and toe walking.”
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“The satirist is prevented by repulsion from gaining a better knowledge of the world he is attracted to, yet he is forced by attraction to concern himself with the world that repels him.”
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