McLab2 Board in PICSimLab: Supported PICs and Debugging
The McLab2 is the board most PICSimLab tutorials start from, and for good reason: it covers the widest range of classic Microchip PIC chips in the simulator, including the PIC16F877A and PIC18F4550 that dominate PIC course material. This page documents exactly which microcontrollers the McLab2 runs in PICSimLab, which simulator backend and debugger it uses, and where its real limits are.
Overview
McLab2 is PICSimLab’s model of the Labtools McLab2 development board. It runs on the picsim backend and is the natural home for PIC16F and PIC18F projects: if a tutorial on this site says “select McLab2 and load the hex file”, this is the board it means. PICSimLab itself has no source code editing support — you write and build your code in MPLAB X with the XC8 compiler, then load the resulting .hex file into the simulated McLab2.
Supported MCUs
| Board | Microcontrollers (official list) | Backend |
|---|---|---|
| McLab2 | PIC16F777, PIC16F877A, PIC18F452, PIC18F4520, PIC18F4550, PIC18F4620 | picsim |
That is six chips in total — three PIC16F and three PIC18F parts. Other PIC chips are not selectable on this board; for the smaller PIC16F84 family see the McLab1 and K16F boards, and for a chip that is not on McLab2 the generic Breadboard is often the right alternative.
Backend & debugging
The picsim backend emulates the microcontroller core and a named set of peripherals (see the limits section below). Debugging uses MPLAB X Integrated Debug: install the PICSimLab plugin file com-picsim-picsimlab.nbm in MPLAB X, and MPLAB X connects to PICSimLab through a TCP socket (port 1234 by default) so you can debug and program the simulator much as you would a real board. Our MPLAB X plugin guide walks through the setup. Project generation follows the standard PICSimLab split: for PIC16F and PIC18F boards the Code Project Wizard generates an MPLAB X project that uses XC8.
What you can do
- Run the canonical first project: blink an LED on a PIC16F877A.
- Drive displays and inputs from the same chip: an HD44780 LCD, a matrix keypad, a 7-segment display, the ADC and UART.
- Move up to the PIC18F4550 with the PIC18F4550 first project tutorial.
- Attach virtual parts from Modules → Spare parts (LEDs, push buttons, displays and more) and probe pins with the built-in oscilloscope.
Real limits
- picsim emulates “some” PIC microcontrollers and peripherals — the upstream project names ADC, interrupts, WDT, TMR0–TMR2, USART, CCP1–CCP3 (PWM and comparator), EEPROM and I/O ports. Do not assume every peripheral of every chip above is modelled; if your project depends on an exotic module, test that specific behaviour before trusting the result.
- The chip list is fixed at the six parts above. There is no PIC24, dsPIC or PIC32 support on this board (or anywhere in PICSimLab’s board list).
- This is a simulation of the McLab2, not the physical board: timing and electrical behaviour are approximations, and final validation still belongs on real hardware.
- Serial communication needs a virtual null-modem port pair (com0com on Windows, tty0tty on Linux) — see our virtual serial ports guide.
New to PICSimLab? Get the official v0.9.3 files from the download page first, then work through the blink tutorial above on this board.