erf! i typo'd in my cut-n-paste of the lisp code.
it should be:
(LET* ((I 8)
(S (OPEN "foo.txt" :DIRECTION :OUTPUT :IF-EXISTS :SUPERSEDE
:ELEMENT-TYPE (LIST 'UNSIGNED-BYTE I))))
(write-byte (1- (ASH 1 I)) S)
(close s))