I’ve recently decided to dive in to the deeper world of microcontrollers (known as PICs). I still enjoy the Arduino and BS2 microcontrollers, but the PICs are smaller, cheaper, and good for doing specific jobs. In doing a bit of research to pick the right PIC and tools to get me started, I found an application that is simply amazing and cheap ($19 to $39) - thought I'd share this with all of you because I know you also have interest in microcontroller development environments.
The program is called Virtual Breadboard. It graphically emulates hardware components, connections between them and (THE BEST PART) the code that you develop to run on the PICs or microcontrollers (yep it can even emulate a BS2!). Simply put Its a rapid electronic development and visualization tool.
The IDE has a toolbox of switches, logical gates, chips, servos, LEDs, LCDs and even a nice selection of PICs that you can click and drag onto a virtual work space (breadboard), then connect the leads by dragging wires between them, select what file\code the PIC\Microcontrollers are to load, then click the run button.
If you have LEDs or LCDs you see the output displayed on them, and if you have servos or stepper motors on the form you see them move. It will even show you the code your PIC is running line by line as it cycles though the loop!
One function I have yet to play with is having the app interact with real RS232 ports on your PC, or having it provide you with a virtual comport that you can hyperterminal/telnet into then send/receive data and commands to and from your virtual hardware.
If you're interested, have a look at the online videos of this app to get a good feel for what it can do. It comes with a lot of working examples and tutorials. Overall this is a great little tool to help you rapidly develop and test not only code but hardware capabilities and outcome of desired results before buying PIC’s, components and building physical prototype.
Hope this doesn't sounds like sales pitch! But it’s not often I come across a new tool that I haven’t seen before that really does this great of a job.
http://www.virtualbreadboard.com/
Best,
Shane W - Date 03/07/2008
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