Judging after the value loaded in TMOD, the actual settings for timer is to run as an external event counter. So, the sequence I was talking about is triggered not by an interval, but by an external event. You may have there a push button or a sensor of some kind.
The sequence on the port is simple to understand if you convert from hex to binary, and it will look like this:
0xff=11111111
0xfe=11111110
0xfc=11111100
0xf8=11111000
0xf0=11110000
0xe0=11100000
0xc0=11000000
0x80=10000000
0x00=00000000
0xfe=11111110
and so on
Most probably, on each pin of P1 is a LED connected. If the led is connected between pin and +, the led will lit when the bit is 0. If the led is between pin and ground, it will lit with bit=1
So the end result is to walk through that sequence when the external bit receives a signal.
your program will respond to pulse applied to your uC T0 pin. when a pulse apllied, it will roll the value on port1. any way you won't notice it cos, the clock frequencies is too high. try to add some delay instruction.