Here’s the code for a C program I conceived during a rather boring night shift while performing national service some years back. The code was later refined using GNU Bison and GNU Flex for parsing the operand field, yielding the possibility of processing whole expressions involving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Instead of specifying IEEE 754 floating point constants in hexadecimal using the pseudo operators OCTA or TETRA, like this:

* Here are some constants from Don Knuth's world:
MIX			OCTA	#408f880000000000	comments are still allowed
MMIX			OCTA	#409f640000000000	after the operand field

* Here are some well known constants from the mathematical world:
Pi			OCTA	#400921fb54442d18	TeX's ultimate version number
e			OCTA	#4005bf0a8b145769	ditto for METAFONT

* Here is a list of simple numbers:
ListOfNumbers		OCTA	#3ff0000000000000,#4000000000000000,#4008000000000000

* 32-bit floating point numbers are also available.
* But do not use them if you do not need them,
* FLOATs have better properties than SINGLEs.
MIX32			TETRA	#447c4000
MMIX32			TETRA	#44fb2000

you can write these numbers a lot simpler using one of the new pseudo operations FLOAT and SINGLE I made up, like this:

* Here are some constants from Don Knuth's world:
MIX			FLOAT	1009	comments are still allowed
MMIX			FLOAT	2009	after the operand field

* Here are some well known constants from the mathematical world:
Pi			FLOAT	3.14159265358979323846	TeX's ultimate version number
e			FLOAT	2.7182818284590452354	ditto for METAFONT

* Here is a list of simple numbers:
ListOfNumbers		FLOAT	1,2,3

* 32-bit floating point numbers are also available.
* But do not use them if you do not need them,
* FLOATs have better properties than SINGLEs.
MIX32			SINGLE	1009
MMIX32			SINGLE	2009

and preprocess your assembly code with mmixalfpp0 prior to running mmixal.

This C program has two snags, it relies on the computer and the C compiler implementing IEEE 754 correctly and on the implementation of the sscanf() library function.

/*
  mmixalfpp0.c - MMIX assembly language floating point number preprocessor

  Since Don Knuth's MMIXAL program does not process floating point numbers
  in its input, you may use this program as a simple preprocessor for your
  MMIX assembly programs.

  Simply use FLOAT or SINGLE instead of OCTA and TETRA and type your
  floats as you would in your ordinary C programs.

  Typical usage is: mmixalfpp0 myfile.mmS myfile.mms

  This implementation relies on how the underlying hardware represents
  floats internally and how the library function sscanf() works.

  Copyright © 2004 Trond Endrestøl <Trond.Endrestol@ximalas.info>

  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
  (at your option) any later version.

  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
  WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
  GNU General Public License for more details.

  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  along with this program; if not, write to the
  Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
  MA 02111-1307 USA.
*/

#include <machine/endian.h>

#include <ctype.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

#define isletter(c) (isalpha((c)) || (c) == '_' || (c) == ':' || (c) > 126)
#define iswhitespace(c) ((c) == ' ' || (c) == '\t')

enum floattype_t { SINGLE, FLOAT } floattype;
typedef union { float f; unsigned char b[4]; } singleprec_t;
typedef union { double d; unsigned char b[8]; } doubleprec_t;

const size_t bufferlen = 1024;

FILE *infile, *outfile;
unsigned char *buffer, *keyword;

void print_hex(void *p)
{
  singleprec_t *s;
  doubleprec_t *d;

  fputc('#', outfile);

  if (floattype == FLOAT) {
    d = (doubleprec_t *)p;
#if BYTE_ORDER == LITTLE_ENDIAN
    fprintf(outfile, "%02x%02x%02x%02x%02x%02x%02x%02x",
            d->b[7], d->b[6], d->b[5], d->b[4],
            d->b[3], d->b[2], d->b[1], d->b[0]);
#elif BYTE_ORDER == BIG_ENDIAN
    fprintf(outfile, "%02x%02x%02x%02x%02x%02x%02x%02x",
            d->b[0], d->b[1], d->b[2], d->b[3],
            d->b[4], d->b[5], d->b[6], d->b[7]);
#else
#error unknown endian
#endif
  } /* if */
  else {
    s = (singleprec_t *)p;
#if BYTE_ORDER == LITTLE_ENDIAN
    fprintf(outfile, "%02x%02x%02x%02x",
            s->b[3], s->b[2], s->b[1], s->b[0]);
#elif BYTE_ORDER == BIG_ENDIAN
    fprintf(outfile, "%02x%02x%02x%02x",
            s->b[0], s->b[1], s->b[2], s->b[3]);
#endif
  } /* else */
} /* print_hex() */

void process_line(void)
{
  singleprec_t singleprec;
  doubleprec_t doubleprec;

  unsigned char *p = buffer, *comment;

  while (p != keyword) { /* Print all ahead of SINGLE or FLOAT */
    fputc(*p++, outfile);
  } /* while */

  p += 5; /* Skip the keyword */

  if (floattype == FLOAT) {
    fputs("OCTA", outfile);
  } /* if */
  else {
    p++; /* Skip the E in SINGLE */
    fputs("TETRA", outfile);
  } /* else */

  while (iswhitespace(*p)) { /* Print the whitespace after the keyword */
    fputc(*p++, outfile);
  } /* while */

  if ( (comment = strchr(p, '\t')) == NULL) { /* Scan for the comment field, a newline, or EOL */
    if ( (comment = strchr(p, ' ')) == NULL) {
      if ( (comment = strchr(p, '\n')) == NULL) {
        comment = strchr(p, '\0');
      } /* if */
    } /* if */
  } /* if */

  while (p != comment) { /* Keep going until we are done with the operand field */
    while (!isdigit(*p) && *p != '+' && *p != '-' && *p != '.' && p != comment) { /* Skip any whitespace */
      fputc(*p++, outfile);
    } /* while */

    if ((isdigit(*p) || *p == '.' || *p == '+' || *p == '-')
        && p != comment) { /* We have found something resembling a number */
      if (floattype == FLOAT) {
        doubleprec.d = 0.0;
        sscanf(p, "%lf", &doubleprec.d); /* Read the number as a double */
        print_hex((void *)&doubleprec);
      } /* if */
      else {
        singleprec.f = 0.0;
        sscanf(p, "%f", &singleprec.f); /* Read the number as a float */
        print_hex((void *)&singleprec);
      } /* else */
    } /* if */

    while ((isdigit(*p) || *p == '.' || *p == '+' || *p == '-'
           || *p == 'e' || *p == 'E') && p != comment) { /* Read past this number */
      p++;
    } /* while */

    while (*p == ',') { /* Print any comma */
      fputc(*p++, outfile);
    } /* while */
  } /* while */

  while (*p != '\0') { /* Print the remainder of the line */
    fputc(*p++, outfile);
  } /* while */
} /* process_line() */

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  if (argc < 3) { /* Check the command line */
    fprintf(stderr,
            "Usage: %s <infile | - > <outfile | - >\n",
            argv[0]);
    return EXIT_FAILURE;
  } /* if */

  if (!strcmp(argv[1], "-")) { /* Use stdin as infile */
    infile = stdin;
  } /* if */
  else {
    if ( (infile = fopen(argv[1], "r")) == NULL) { /* Open infile */
      fprintf(stderr,
              "%s: couldn't open %s for reading\n",
              argv[0], argv[1]);
      return EXIT_FAILURE;
    } /* if */
  } /* else */

  if (!strcmp(argv[2], "-")) { /* Use stdout as outfile */
    outfile = stdout;
  } /* if */
  else {
    if ( (outfile = fopen(argv[2], "w")) == NULL) { /* Open outfile */
      fprintf(stderr,
              "%s: couldn't open %s for writing\n",
              argv[0], argv[2]);
      return EXIT_FAILURE;
    } /* if */
  } /* else */

  if ( (buffer = malloc(bufferlen * sizeof(char))) == NULL) { /* Allocate memory */
    fprintf(stderr,
            "%s: couldn't allocate %ld bytes for buffer\n",
            argv[0], (long)(bufferlen * sizeof(char)));
    return EXIT_FAILURE;
  } /* if */

  while (!feof(infile)) { /* Read until the end of infile */
    if (fgets(buffer, bufferlen, infile) == NULL) { /* Read the next line from infile */
      if (feof(infile)) { /* We are at the end of infile */
        return EXIT_SUCCESS; /* Everything is OK */
      } /* if */
      else {
        fprintf(stderr,
                "%s: could not read line from %s\n",
                argv[0], argv[1]);
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
      } /* else */
    } /* if */

    if (isletter(buffer[0]) || isdigit(buffer[0]) || iswhitespace(buffer[0])) { /* This line is not a comment */
      if ( (keyword = strstr(buffer, "FLOAT")) != NULL) { /* Found FLOAT */
        floattype = FLOAT;
        process_line();
      } /* if */
      else if ( (keyword = strstr(buffer, "SINGLE")) != NULL) { /* Found SINGLE */
        floattype = SINGLE;
        process_line();
      } /* else if */
      else { /* This line does not contain SINGLE nor FLOAT */
        fputs(buffer, outfile);
      } /* else*/
    } /* if */
    else { /* This line is a comment */
      fputs(buffer, outfile);
    } /* else */
  } /* while */

  /* NOTREACHED */
  return EXIT_SUCCESS; /* Everything is OK */
} /* main() */

/* End of mmixalfpp0.c */