Data Sheet

Proteus VSM
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If you really need to examine behaviour in detail you can even step the code at assembly level.
Right click on the source menu and select 'disassembly' from the resulting context menu and
then use the same step commands as before.
Right click and select disassembly again to return to high level source code stepping
You may notice during step debugging that the active popup for the display does
not show a full legible output. This is correct and a consequence of the display
being multiplexed.
If you want to run through to the next button release simply press the play button on the
animation control panel and then click the button on the active popup to trigger the breakpoint
again.
Right click and select clear all breakpoints when you are finished and then press the stop button
on the animation control panel to end the debugging session.
Important Notes
When you hit a breakpoint or single step debug in Proteus it is important to understand that you
have the entire system under time control. This means for example that capacitors will not
discharge or motors lose momentum when the system is paused. When you step over a
command the instructions are executed, the effect of those instructions are propagated through
the system and then the system will pause again. You can see this controlled advance of time
via the output on the status bar during debugging.
Many additional debugging windows are available which are not discussed in this tutorial. All of
these can be launched from the debug window in VSM Studio and will appear at the bottom of
the IDE. Data will be displayed on the windows whenever the simulation is paused. The watch
window - which is a special case - is discussed separately in the next section of the tutorial.
The Watch Window
The watch window is the one debugging window that provides live data during free running
simulation and it also gives us a different way to target breakpoints. To start with, let’s use the
watch window to monitor the ADC conversions from the POT.