1. Short for hexadecimal, base 16. 2. A 6-pack
of anything (compare quad, sense 2). Neither usage has
anything to do with magic or black art, though the pun is
appreciated and occasionally used by hackers. True story: As a
joke, some hackers once offered some surplus ICs for sale to be
worn as protective amulets against hostile magic. The chips were,
of course, hex inverters.
magic number n.
[Unix/C; common] 1. In source code
some non-obvious constant whose value is significant to the
operation of a program and that is inserted inconspicuously in-line
(hardcoded), rather than expanded in by a symbol set by a
commented #define....