Running a simulation is as simple clicking the run Simulation button on the toolbar, selecting the SimulationàRun menu option or pressing the F9 shortcut key. This will put Virtual Breadboard into runtime mode, hiding the design time tools. Any runtime tools for the components will become available and the circuit will begin executing the simulation.
In this example the PIC16C54 starts its debug menu and begins executing the counter source code. This results in the timing pulses being generated by the 555 Timer being counted by the PIC16C54 and the counted number appearing at PORTB and subsequently on the LED8 component in binary form.
During runtime there is some interesting performance and simulation information available in the toolbar. The simulated Step frequency, which by default is 1Mhz, is the number of simulated steps per second applied by virtual breadboard. Different components are effected differently by the step frequency. The Timer component has the default period of 10 steps which in the real world makes it a 100Khz oscillator. The PIC16C54 in the real world has a divide by 4 clock which means 1Mhz step frequency is equivalent to running the PIC with a 4Mhz clock. The LED8 component is not effected by the step frequency.
Simulated steps is the total number of steps the simulation has performed since this simulation session started. This is number is multiplied by the simulated step frequency to calculate the elapsed simulated real-time. To give some idea of the performance of the Virtual Breadboard simulation the number of steps per second is displayed.
Running a simulation is one of two ways to view a simulation. The other is to single step through the simulation which provides good debugging opportunities. Before single stepping the simulation you need to halt the simulation.