BitFummler – Bit- uh – What?

Jürgen Welzenbach

01/09/2021

Self-praise stinks! I agree. But in this case, it's not a problem, because the lack of browser-based smell support means there's no burden on readers ;-) So, what's the point?

A long time ago, I was suffering from my inadequate mental arithmetic skills – and they certainly haven't improved over the years. So I started "carving" a small tool to make it easier for me to convert from decimals to hex and various other number systems. (Note: If the saying "A fool with a tool is still a fool" springs to mind here – that's certainly true :-D )

Gradually, further functions were added, some at the suggestion of the growing user community, such as

  • Set/Clear/Invert bits/bytes/words
  • Reflect
  • Rotate (Left/Right with and without wrap)
  • ASCII input/display
  • Signed/Unsigned
  • a simple C code parser (simply driven by curiosity to implement something like this with Lex/Yacc)
  • the display of Windows error codes or similar in text form (although this can now be done more quickly using a search engine – as I said, the BitFummler has already had a few years of experience on its virtual silverback).
    Sometimes it is also helpful to display the #define associated with a value – a simple C header parser makes this possible.
  • Representation of the 32-bit value as a bit field – freely configurable
  • and much more

The BitFummler is available for download at heise.de.

Have fun—er, trying it out. Bug reports and feature requests are, of course, welcome.

Jürgen Welzenbach


Written by Jürgen Welzenbach

After studying electrical engineering in Erlangen, Jürgen completed his diploma thesis in cooperation with a manufacturer of ophthalmological devices and the University Eye Clinic.

He discovered embedded software in two Erlangen companies and primarily developed HMIs for construction machinery and laboratory analysis devices.


More articles

  • 28/05/2026
  • General, Documentation, Embedded, Hardware, Standards, Software

Why FPGAs in medical devices are increasingly becoming the focus of software audits and how you can avoid regulatory risks early on. When programmable logic suddenly ends up in a software audit, things can quickly get uncomfortable. ...

Read more
  • 14/05/2026
  • General, manufacturing, production

Many medical technology companies face the central challenge of transferring a developed medical device from development to series production – while complying with MDR, ISO 13485 and full ...

Read more
  • 16/04/2026
  • General, manufacturing, production, quality, company

Regional, traceable, resilient: Why MedTech is reinventing its supply chains. How geopolitical risks, dependence on China, and stricter regulations are fundamentally changing production and supply chain strategies in medical technology. The global MedTech supply chain at its limit. ...

Read more