My keypad fetish...

CKA keyboard adapter for Cardco CK1.

I've worked so hard to solve my little keypad issues, that I am starting to worry I may have some mild form of OCD or even a keypad fetish.  Whatever it is or was, it's starting to scare me a little.

I grabbed this last night on Etsy.  This interface will allow you to plug the Cardco Cardkey 1 numeric keypad directly into the keyboard lines, which allows it to function in ALL software applications and cartridges!  No drivers or programs are needed if you use this adapter.

This little item had to be purchased separately when the keypad was originally purchased, and was not included in the original package. These are literally impossible to find now.  I've watched eBay for years, and written to everyone still selling software and hardware online.  Especially if their web site says, "misc parts and cables... just ask."  Nada... Nothing!

I also just realized that the manual is not up on DLH's Commodore Archive.  I'm going to have to remedy that here soon as well.  The manual is scanned and online now as of February 2, 2013.  If you need the drivers, they are here for both the C64 and the VIC-20.   Those drivers were almost lost forever until a friend in Sweden and I recovered the bit-rot infested cassette tape ... "new in box," mind you!  We used a Cassadapt unit from cbm8bit.com (Ross), and Fredric Blåholtz's mad skills to hand-stitch the faint bits back together again using special software and analysis by Fredric.   The good people of Cardco only put one copy of the driver on one side of the cassette.  Nice!

Anyway, for 2013 I've decided that my New Year's Resolution should be to go cold-turkey on the whole keypad thing.  I think I can finally put it to rest now.

I have additional gadget-related material over on my web site: http://www.geocities.ws/cbm

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