C64 Keyboard pinout matrix This is the information needed to make a keyboard for the C64. the ribbon cable header has 20 pins (one is an empty space called the KEY). 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 <== Pin Numbers ------------------------------------------- ^^ 1 <= CTRL STOP SPACE C= Q 2 20 3 W A SHIFT Z S E 4 19 5 R D X C F T 6 18 7 Y G V B H U 8 17 9 I J N M K O 0 (zero) 16 + P L , . : @ - 15 pound * ; / SHIFT = ^ CLR 14 DEL RET CRSR CRSR F1 F3 F5 F7 13 (L/R) (U/Down) ^^^^ Pin Numbers ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Characters on the C64 Keyboard ^^^ I am numbering the ribbon cable header with 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 ^ 2 is missing and is the "KEY". The C64 keyboard works like a momentary switch. You can check the pin arrangement with a jumper cable to complete a circuit between pins 5-12 and pins 13-20 (two groups of eight) any pin in the first group connected to any pin in the other group will put a character on the screen (memory). So with standard off the self keys like from Digikey, One can make a keyboard. By putting a "Y" at the ribbon cable header you can connect a numberpad and the keyboard at the same time. I have rewired an off the shelf numberpad to work this way that included SHIFT and CRSR keys and the math function keys as well as the numbers of course. I have seperated the C64 from the keyboard by 10 feet using an adapter that plugs into the ribbon cable header on the mother board and has a 25 pin D connector for a standard computer cable. It made nice game machine. This could also be used to make a new computer with custom keyboard using the C64 chip set and CMD SuperCPU. Hint Hint CMD ;) Hope this gets put to some good use.
Amiga7878