Let's get this out of the way: Jenny Calendar was done wrong. She was a rad technopagan when nobody, including the writers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, had any idea what a technopagan might be, and she was cruelly murdered just when she and her coven could have been ushering in a new era of occult networked communication.
The HexSoft Cybernetics Pentacle is a Raspberry Pi and Teensy-powered portable computer which imagines an alternative future where it was technopagan witches, not CERN researchers, who built the World Wide Web. What sort of networking technologies would we be using in such a future? What sort of protocols? What information would we find valuable to keep at our fingertips? Would we need devices which generate magic circles using Bluetooth or WiFi-Direct? Which can rapidly prototype Tarot spreads? Summon demons?
Join me as I build the HexSoft Pentacle: the hexpunk portable that we deserve.
Within the hexpunk universe of the Pentacle, in the year 20XX, HexSoft Cybernetics is a leading, established manufacturer of reliable, workaday mundane/occult interfacing technology. They produce ICs, serial and parallel protocol specifications, and prototyping and development boards for both amateur witches and leading manufacturers. But the Pentacle is something special, and a step above HexSoft's everyday offerings. The Pentacle is a direct response to the success of HexSoft's rival Occult Integrated Devices' offering, the OID Circle C-601, a luggable, wireless occult interfacing suite which has become a mainstay in offices and boardrooms around the globe.
The Pentacle offers something different - a powerful, slimmed-down set of occult interfacing tools in a package no larger than a notebook. Where the Circle needs a power supply and weighs as much as a small goblin, the Pentacle is fully battery powered. Moreover, while the Circle only has a single screen running Hexix, the Pentacle offers two screens - a 4" full color screen with a full Hexix interface, and a small monochrome OLED screen providing an immediate readout of key occult data from the local environment and some vital witchcraft tools, including a single-card and single-rune divination generator.
Due to its ease of use and compact size, since its introduction last quarter, the Pentacle has become the go-to device for all occult operatives in the field, in the office, and even at home. Welcome the HexSoft revolution into your coven today!