Software
C64 Keyboard Bridge: Use your C64 Ultimate keyboard on a modern computer
Hi everyone,
I’ve just released C64 Keyboard Bridge 0.1.0. It lets you use your C64 Ultimate’s keyboard to type on a Mac, Windows or Linux computer over your local network.
There’s a desktop app with a keyboard mapping editor and tray controls, plus a CLI. A C64 program reads the keyboard and sends the key presses to the computer. No hardware modification or firmware replacement is needed.
I’ve tested typing, shortcuts, repeat and recovery with my C64 Ultimate on macOS, Windows and Ubuntu. I haven't tested on other Linux distributions.
It’s free and open source under GPL-3.0-only. Downloads, source, instructions and screenshots are here:
"Thanks for your post! Please make sure you've read our rules and FAQ post. If your post is about the C64 Ultimate please and check out The Ultimate C64 Ultimate post for common issues and questions. People not following the rules will have their posts removed and presistant rule breaking will results in your account being banned. "
Thats amazing! Do you think this would let me control vice with proper petscii codes and all of the keys mapped to the emulator? It probably wont work for the break key right?
(Thinking big)
What if there was a way to have the same keypress control the c64u and the emulator at the same time to benchmark things or get extra work done?
What if i could type on that keyboard and the input only ever went into a certain program (so there was never any issue of keyboard focus ever again)
I dont have a c64 ultimate yet unfortunately but will use this when i do. Great work
Thanks! These are exactly the sort of ideas I’d love to explore.
VICE should be possible with a dedicated mapping profile. The bridge sends key presses and releases rather than PETSCII codes, so VICE would handle the C64 characters. It supports custom keyboard mappings, but I haven’t tested that yet, so I can’t promise every graphics character and combination works.
If you mean RUN/STOP, that’s captured already and currently maps to Escape. RESTORE is the tricky one: it works differently from the other keys and isn’t captured by the bridge.
Having one keyboard drive both machines would be really cool for comparisons. The catch is that the bridge currently runs as a program on the C64 Ultimate itself, so you can’t also run an arbitrary game or application alongside it. That would need a different approach.
And yes, sending input only to a chosen program would be a great feature. Right now it goes to whichever app has focus, so that’s something I’d need to add and investigate on each OS.
Really appreciate the ideas! Hope you get your Ultimate soon :)
I don't have enough desk space for another keyboard. My Windows laptop is on the left, my MacBook is on the right, and my C64 Ultimate is in the middle. So I want to use the C64U as a keyboard to control both computers.
•
u/AutoModerator 20h ago
"Thanks for your post! Please make sure you've read our rules and FAQ post. If your post is about the C64 Ultimate please and check out The Ultimate C64 Ultimate post for common issues and questions. People not following the rules will have their posts removed and presistant rule breaking will results in your account being banned. "
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.