VBB Emulator for Netduino

James Caska 19 May 2011 VBB now has limited support for Netduino. Netduino uses the .NET Micro Framework which allows Visual Studio to be used for embedded development.

Visual Studio is designed to allow you to deploy to multiple types of targets. When you work with the Netduino you configure it to work with USB Transport. There is a Emulator option but the default emulator is not useful for working with the Netduino. VBB aims to change that. When you install VBB ( www.virtualbreadboard.com ) there is an installer option asking if you want to install a Netduino Emulator for the .NET Micro Framework. If you install the Netduino Emulator it will appear in the Emulator Device List in the Visual Studio .NET Micro Framework configuration Tab.

Samples
VBB Also installs a collection of examples in the <DOCUMENT DIRECTORY>VirtualBreadboard/Samples/Netduino This directory contains VBB Virtual hardware projects and matching Visual Studio project to drive the hardware along with a share driver library I hope to grow.

VBB Projects

Projects Match Up

Visual Studio Projects Driver Library Visual Studio Solution with all Projects To run a sample 1 Open the VirtualBreadboardDemos.sln in Visual Studio 2 Select a Demo project and use Set as Startup Project to select it

3 Select the .NET Micro Framework Tab and make sure the NetduinoVBBEmulator is selected

4 Start VBB and open the matching VBB project. The projects are featured as builtin projects in the New Project tab

6 Run the project Nothing will happen thats expected because it is waiting for the Visual Studio to connect to it via the Emulator

7 Start the Visual Studio Project. This will launch the emulator which will pop up a connection log form

8 Things should be happening now as the application executes.

You can now set breakpoints in Visual Studio and debug your application.

Whats Happening
The NetduinoVBBEmulator is an Emulator implementation which acts as an interface between Microsoft Emulator concepts and the VBB emulator concepts over a socket.

Limitations
Only the Digital IO are presently supported, no Analog or Peripherals as you see in the Arduino but that will come if there is interest. VBB v4.3.7 or greater Subscription required for the shown example with the 74595 but the others work fine with the evaluation version

Enjoy!