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Techman is back after a few years away being very busy with embedded Forth

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Hi all, I can't even remember what nick I used last time !

Perhaps it's because I'm 72 years old now, who knows ?

Anyway, I created and maintain the "Unofficial Mecrisp-Stellaris userdoc"
https://mecrisp-stellaris-folkdoc.sourceforge.io/index.html
which I know a few have seen.

I retired about six years ago and have really been productive with
embedded Forth and would like to announce a couple of completed MIT
licensed projects for those here that do embedded.

Firstly there is 'Regmon'

10 second video as the 24" monitor is in portrait mode:
https://github.com/techman00172/regmon-re/blob/master/pics/regmon.mp4

Regmon is a live register monitor for STM32 microcontrollers. It reads
the chip's registers over SWD while the target runs -- no stop, no re-
flash -- and decodes them against the official CMSIS-SVD files. Works
alongside a running Mecrisp Forth kernel on the same debug link, so you
can watch RCC/GPIO/timer registers change as your Forth words execute.
Registers, bitfields and an AI-assisted analysis pane. Linux, Python.

Three buttons you will not find on any other register tool:

Analyse Reg samples one register about twenty times over ten seconds
and the AI tells you what that register is actually doing while the
chip runs.

Analyse Prog fingerprints the whole chip -- it reads the RCC clock
gates and the dynamic registers, samples the program counter and
stack pointer, and the AI gives a verdict on what the program is
doing, live, without stopping the core. That is the unusual bit:
conventional microprocessor tools freeze the chip at a breakpoint
to inspect it, or need a logic analyser strapped to the pins.
Analyse Prog works on a running target over the same SWD link the
Forth kernel is using -- no halt, no re-flash, no extra hardware.

Strings scans flash for readable text, so you can see what firmware
is actually on the chip -- handy for identifying an unknown board.

Regmon's AI reads your registers live and tells you what they mean. As
the chip runs, Regmon streams the changing register values over SWD and
hands them to an AI, which decodes each one against the silicon's own
register definitions -- the bitfields, the flags, what each change
indicates. When a value flips, Regmon explains why it matters in plain
language, in real time. No more leafing through a thousand-page data
book hunting for the right page to find out what a number means -- the
answer arrives as the register changes. The AI is the data book that
never has to be flipped.

And here's the crucial part: none of that knowledge comes from the
Internet. Regmon's AI answers come from inbuilt knowledge bases, built
from the manufacturer's own data sheets and register definition (SVD)
files -- the same source of truth the silicon's designers used. The
databases ship with Regmon and live on your machine; there's no web
lookup, no scraping, no reliance on a general-purpose AI that might have
"read something somewhere." When Regmon tells you what a register means,
it's answering from the authoritative documentation, packaged locally.
The register descriptions are tightly bound to the manufacturer's own
data -- no web lookup, no guessing.

get it at https://github.com/techman00172/regmon-re

But there is a BIG catch, you won't be able to install it manually as
it's pretty complex, but there is a dead easy install proceedure.

[If you don't already have the service of a frontier AI:]

* Install opencode -- https://opencode.ai (free, one command)

* Get an AI account -- DeepSeek works great and is cheap; or use a free
  model on OpenRouter's free tier (e.g. openai/gpt-oss-20b:free). A few
  dollars of OpenRouter credit is plenty.

* Point opencode at the AI -- opencode with your API key (DeepSeek or
  OpenRouter). Two minutes.

[If you do have an AI]

* Tell the AI to install Regmon-RE from "github.com/techman00172/regmon-re"

That's it :)

Upcoming posts include "Fossilcrew" for sole developers, "The Anvil Gate",
Mecrisp-Stellaris LSP, CMSIS-SVD LSP and more.

Cheers, Terry

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Thread

Techman is back after a few years away being very busy with embedded Forth Terry Porter <techman001@eternal-september.org> - 2026-08-16 19:49 +0000
  Re: Techman is back after a few years away being very busy with embedded Forth antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-08-18 16:54 +0000
    Re: Techman is back after a few years away being very busy with embedded Forth Terry Porter <techman001@eternal-september.org> - 2026-08-19 04:01 +0000
  Re: Techman is back after a few years away being very busy with embedded Forth Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-08-28 18:12 -0300
    Re: Techman is back after a few years away being very busy with embedded Forth Terry Porter <techman001@eternal-september.org> - 2026-08-30 01:47 +0000

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