Hexadecimal Poems

Assembly Programming Test

I whizzed past the assembler, add
count in octal, subtract 
hexadecimal. Found error 
in the dump file, all zeroes
and wondered, is this an omen?

Surprise! write me an algorithm
for a full third of test score.
Sort all data in a file
swap and exchange,
compare and relate.

Loop through the right number
and oh, woe for me, I get a C plus.
The highest in the class,
all doomed to retake the section
except me, who passes.

But the A and B slip away
because I never set my counters,
important counters full of junk
all back to zero. Zero the clean
state of all beginnings.

Programmers learn by trial 
and error, one pass,
one dump and oh, yeah, 
zero out the counters
Or face certain demise.