Let's start off with a capsule text description of Hexadec. At the bottom of the page there are two links: one taking you back to the Homepage, the other taking you to the User's Manual. After that, abandon hope all ye who enter here as there'll be no "back" buttons to the previous site. Have fun!

 

Hexadec is indeed
the Playing Card of the Computer Age!


First: This is a deck of cards you can shuffle and play your favorite card games with. Since a majority of us humans are born with ten fingers, we developed a decimal system for counting. Since computers were born with on/off switches (like many biological organisms, they only respond to power), they developed a binary system for counting, or ones and zeros. As they became more sophisticated, they learned to count to eight (this was called octal) but since they started at zero they only went to up seven. But they studied really, really hard and now they can count all the way up to sixteen! This is called hexadecimal and, yes, it starts with zero and goes to nine. Having run out of numbers it switched to letters and continued with letters A through F. It's like computers have eight fingers on each hand. Or something.

Well, we figured it was about time that the old-fashioned playing card was brought up to date and since everything eventually winds up in computers we thought we'd use a numbering system both humans and computers would understand: Hexadecimal!

And thus was Hexadec born. Yes, it's still a deck of cards you can shuffle and play games with, but soon they will be on the computer as well. How about that. A computer game you can play without a computer!

[Just a word about hexadecimal. You see, computers really only understand binary, or ones & zeros. But since it's kind of tough for humans to count in binary, programmers use "hex" to write computer code, which is easily converted to binary. For example, try getting a handle on "1001111100101010"? Wouldn't you rather remember "9F21A"? Same dif as far as the computer is concerned and as far as decimal's concerned, forget it. "F" is 16, FF is 255 and it only gets hairier from there. Trust me, hex is the way for programmers to count.

Unless you're using your fingers. Do you know that you can count in binary with them, all the way up to 1,024? Hold up two fists. Zero. Stick out the pinkie on your right hand. One. Put it back and stick up the one next to it. Two. Now stick up the pinkie again with the finger next to it still up. Three. A finger down is a "zero". A finger up is a "one". All fingers down are zilch. All fingers up are one thousand & twenty-four. Go ahead, try it, but give yourself plenty of time and have some Ben Gay handy.]

Let's review this now. You pick up your Hexadec and look at the cards. (You really can, actually. We manufactured a prototype run but we just have a few left so they're kind of expensive but if you're interested, E-mail us. But if you don't have a deck, use your biological virtual reality.) So now you have them in your hand. You see that there are number cards (zero to nine) and face cards (A to F) so they look kind of familiar. Well, instead of jokers you have Hackers. And then there are silly cards like Vipers ("Snakes for the memory."), Worms ("Happiness is a worm program.") and Bugs ("This Bug's for you!), collectively the VW Bugs. The Punch Card has a picture of a punch bowl, then there is the Access Key card and six Job Control Language cards (0-5, of course.) Don't worry about what they mean. When you need them you'll be told how to use them. If you are a programmer (most people aren't) these terms would already be familiar. If you are not a programmer, don't worry, people get used to the new cards pretty quickly.

But the main thing is, they're familiar. Sure, there are six face cards instead of three. Since this is a business hierarchy, you have the Alpha User, the Beta Tester, the Cystems Analyst, the Developer of Software, the Executive Administrative Assistant and the First CEO. So instead of J, Q, & K you see A, B, C, D, E, & F. With me so far? Just like in the traditional deck, there are four suits, called sectors. Instead of clubs you have chips; instead of diamonds you have mice; instead of hearts you have CRTs (pronounced "carts") and finally, instead of spades you have RAMs. It's all starting to make sense, now, isn't it?

So you can play games like solitaire (we call it SoloHex), go fish! (Access), poker (Executive Suite after our equivalent of a full house), blackjack (CEO or 31), cribbage (ROMage) and contract bridge (Document Network or DocNet). We have adaptations for all of those and more. We also have original games with names like 16s, Start/Stop, Byte, Virus & Assembly. Can't you just hardly wait!

And now, if you care to indulge, the User's Manual's up ahead; just take the down arrow (it made sense to me at the time.) As I said up front, no back buttons, so if you wish to go back I suggest you clear the URL above to the index (http://www.hexadec.com/UsersManual/.) That'll do the trick.

 
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