strip 8th bit

If you strip the 8th bit from a number, it means to remove the 8th digit in binary notation.

Example

1111 1110 (binary) = FE (hexadecimal) = 254 (decimal) -> 111 1110 (binary) = 7E (hexadecimal) = 126 (decimal) 

When converting characters between different systems (for example, NLS to TSS), the 8th bit is stripped to obtain the intrinsic character value, which is sometimes needed to address the font.