The image above shows the standard tutorial tool bar controls. Working from left to right (not including the contents tree): on the top left you will see a number of exercise buttons. Only attempt exercises once you have read the tutorial. Below these buttons is the main tutorial text. To the right of the exercise buttons you will see a 'Vlab' button. Clicking on this will load the Virtual Laboratory together with the appropriate section of the demonstration program. To the right of the Vlab button you will see an IDE button. Clicking on this will load the IDE together with the appropriate complete tutorial program source code listing (the ASM file - see below).

Underneath the VLAB and IDE buttons you will see the program under discussion. This may be split into several sections as each of the 39 tutorials in this package is often split into sub-tutorial sections, so do not worry if you do not understand the whole listing after reading the first screen of each tutorial.

Where the buttons are greyed out then this means that they are not available for that tutorial.

All the demo files are supplied as ASCII text files (with a .ASM ending - pronounced "dot A.S.M.") they have all been written using the MPASM programming dialect.

During these tutorials, you will be asked to modify some of the .ASM files, and to write your own sets of commands, saving each with unique file names having the .ASM extension.

To assemble a .ASM file, you should use the IDE, which can be accessed via the 'Full Listing / IDE' button on all relevant tutorial screens.

You can use the IDE to:
* Assemble a .ASM file (producing a .HEX file)
* Send the .HEX file to the PICmicro

It is not our intention to teach you all about the MPASM programming dialect and the MPASM assembler, to learn more about these study Microchip's own documentation, available as described in the Reference section.