IMSAI 8080 & Altair 8800 hex dumps to octal
If you play around with entering programs via the toggle switches on the Altair 8800 or IMSAI 8080 or one of their clones, recreations, replicas or simulators, you may want to enter a hex dump of an assembler program via your front panel. While most experienced programmers prefer the hex notation, it is a bit error prone to convert the hex digits in your head into the binary notation of a nibble (4 bits). This is why many example programs in the original manuals and also the front panels of these systems feature the unusual octal notation. It is very simple to convert octal into binary and if you are used to UNIX permissions, you will already know these by heart. [Read more →]