LogicWorks Tutorial

Objective

This tutorial will show you how quickly you can create and test a circuit using LogicWorks.

  1. Start LogicWorks 4 by selecting it from the Start menu. You should see three windows pop up.
    The window on the top left of the screen is called the design window. This has LogicWorks4 - [Circuit1.cct] written on its title bar. This is where we will draw the circuit to be simulated. The window on the right is called the parts pallette and the window below the design window is called the timing window.  
  2. Go to the parts pallette. Select the drop-down list at the top. Choose Simulation Gates.clf from the options in the list. Now you should see a listing of various gates in the lower part of the parts pallete. 
  3. Double-click on AND-2 and move the mouse pointer (cursor) into the design window. You should have a blinking AND gate in place of the pointer now. Position the AND gate in the middle of the design window. Left-click once to place it on the schematic. (You can place as many AND gates as you want simply by moving to a clear location and clicking.) 
  4. Now go to the parts pallette and select the drop-down list. Choose Simulation IO.clf. You should see the listing change. 
  5. Double-click on Binary Switch and place two of them on the schematic near the inputs of the AND gate. Make sure the switches have sufficient distance between them and do not overlap. 
  6. Double-click on Binary Probe and place a probe near the output of the AND gate. 
  7. Go to the Drawing toolbar and click on the left plus (+) sign [don't use the right plus(bold +) sign]. Move the pointer to the design window. The pointer should change to a cross (X) sign. You are now in wiring mode. To connect two pins, click on one of them and then click on the other. They should now be wired together. (Note: any time you want to return the cursor to a pointer, just press the Spacebar.) 
  8. Connect one of the switches to the upper input of the AND gate and then the other switch to the lower. Now connect the output of the AND gate to the probe. If you have connected the parts properly, the probe should display a binary number in place of the X it had before it was connected. 
  9. Troubleshooting:If the probe displays an X, click on the wires to verify the connections. The wires are connected to whatever is highlighted. 
  10. If there is a problem, go to the Drawing toolbar and click on the lightning bolt. Move it to the design window and zap the questionable connection to erase it. Now reconnect the pins and verify.
  11. You will need to name the signals to see the simulation results in the timing window. To name a signal, go to the Drawing toolbar and choose the text tool, A. (Alternatively, in the design window, go to the Edit menu and choose Text. The pointer changes to a pencil. Place the pencil point on the output wire of the AND gate and click once. The pencil will change to anI-beam. Type the output signal name and Enter. You should see the signal name colored magenta and appear in the timing window as well. If it didn't, you just entered a black colored label (i.e., text), not a name. (You can zap mistakes at anytime.) Similarly, name the two input signals. (You can use the pointer to move the names to their final positions.) 
  12. You are now ready to run the simulation. In the design window, go to Simulation toolbar and click on the walking man button. Now go to the design window and click on one of the switches. Repeat this a few times and observe the results in the timing window. Do the results make sense? Do the same thing with the other switch. If you have problems seeing the output clearly, push the < > button on the simulator toolbar a few times until you are comfortable with the display.

If required to hand in a deliverable, follow the following steps. 

You are ready to save your circuit and print it out. Before you do, there are two things you need to do.

1. Put the circuit name, your name and the date on the circuit drawing. You use the text tool as before except you can write in any empty area on the schematic. Right-click on the label to get the Text Object Options box. Select Draw Frame Around Text. Click on Font Specs. Change the font Style to Bold and Size to 14.

2. Center your drawing on the page. In the design window, go to the Schematic menu and choose Center in Page. Go to Design Preferences and set Show Printed Page Breaks to see that your drawing fits on a single sheet. In the File menu, use Print Setup to choose the orientation of the printer paper you want. Print your circuit. Save your circuit on your own floppy or in your own account disk space. (Caution: the lab PCs are initialized periodically and your files will be erased.)