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.

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

VBB

Projects

Visual

Studio

Projects

Driver Library

Projects Match Up

Visual Studio Solution with all Projects

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 – that’s 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!