Drag and Drop the component onto the breadboard
Adding a new component is easy as dragging and dropping the component onto the breadboard. In the bottom left corner of Virtual Breadboard is the component preview.
Move your mouse pointer over the component preview of the 555 Timer and Click and hold your left-mouse-button. A bounding box will appear around your mouse pointer to indicate you have picked up the component.
Move the mouse to the approximate location you want to place the component on your breadboard. The bounding box will follow your mouse pointer as you move it to indicate where the component will fit on the breadboard. Don’t worry if you don’t place it exactly - you can always move it again later on.
Release the mouse button to drop the component into place. It just like plugging a real component onto a real breadboard. Think of the toolbox as your component bin and your breadboard as, well... your breadboard. You get the idea.
Repeat the previous two steps to add the LED8 component. (The LED8 component can be found by dropping down the combo-box under the bar LED icon in the component palette.) Leave a little room for the PIC16c54 micro to be added in the middle. You might notice the component is upside-down. Later, I will show you how to turn it around.
Your screen should now look something like this.
The final component to add is the PIC16c54 itself. Unlike the TIMER and LED8 component, the PIC16c54 is not a “Built-In” component. It is a member of the PICMicros package.
A Package is a Virtual Breadboard “plugin” and contains one or more components. Packages enable Virtual Breadboard to expand. If you know a little about programming you can even add build your own components and packages to add using the Component Development Kit.
There are numerous packages available with Virtual Breadboard, containing a huge range of components and microcontroller simulations.
The PICMicros package contains simulations of microcontrollers from the MicroChip PIC family, including the PIC16c54. All packages have a package specification which provides important information about the components in the package including component selection and any shared run-time features of the components.