Proteus VSM and Keil Development Tools

Proteus VSM and Keil Development Tools

Introduction

This document is intended to provide instruction for configuring Proteus VSM to work with the Keil IDE. It

also walks through some basic debugging techniques and provides a short tutorial on debugging a simulated

VSM circuit with the Keil IDE. It is not intended in any way to provide a complete list of the features of either

product but rather is meant to supply some specific information on the interoperability of the two

applications.

Getting Started

For the purposes of the following discussion we will assume that both Proteus VSM and the Keil software

has been installed in the default directories on your computer. You will be able to follow the subsequent

steps with demonstration versions of both packages although you will find that you need to purchase the

following VSM components if you want to simulate your own designs.

·Proteus VSM Professional (Schematic Capture and Simulation Engine).

·MCS8051/52 Microcontroller Family.

·Peripherals Library.

Should you wish to write programs greater that 2K in size you will also need to purchase a Professional

version of the Keil IDE.

How does it work?

Interaction between Proteus and the Keil IDE is achieved via the Virtual Debug Monitor (VDM) Interface.

This interface defines a mechanism whereby the Keil IDE can control a VSM simulation session in much the

same way as it might control an in-circuit emulator.

Actual communication is achieved through TCP/IP. This has the advantage that a debugging session can be

run either on one computer or on two computers without the need for any external hardware other than a

typical office network.

How do I set it up?

Although a lot of the hard work is done for you, some manual configuration is still necessary for successful

communication. A step by step guide is given below.

·Ensure that TCP/IP networking is installed on the computer(s) you are going to be using. Almost all user

will have this installed by default but it is easily checked. Look for TCP/IP under the following path:

Control Panel – Network –Protocols (Windows NT) or

Control Panel – Network – Configuration (Windows 95/98)

·Copy the VDM51.dll file from the MODELS directory of your Proteus VSM Installation to the BIN

directory of your Keil installation. Typically these two directories are located at:

C:\Program Files\Labcenter Electronics\Proteus 5.2 Professional\MODELS

and

C:\KEIL\C51\BIN

·Using NOTEPAD (or your favourite text editor), edit the TOOLS.INI file that is located in the file to which

you have installed the Keil software. The full path to this file is typically C:\Keil\Tools.ini.

Towards the bottom of this file under the section [C51] you will find the line

TDRV0=BIN\MON51.DLL (“Keil Monitor-51 Driver”)

Immediately below this add a line that specifies the location of the copied VDM51.DLL . By default this

will be

TDRV1=BIN\VDM51.DLL (“Proteus VSM Monitor-51 Driver”)

This done, you can now save the TOOLS.INI file.

Note: If you have the Keil application open you will need to close it down before the above changes will take

effect.

You should now have configured the Keil IDE to accept the VDM driver allowing communication between the

applications. The next step is to prepare a Keil project for debugging under Proteus VSM.