how long has it been...

since you had a new machine? Oh my! Some getting used to! The stitch dial on my old carriage, it was so loose, I could turn it with the side of one finger. This new one, I almost feel like it needs two hands! Switching from stockinette to tuck, pay attention! Say nothing of the extra elbow grease to pass the carriage back and forth! Oh well, enough whining! It works! Did I mention that Mike’s yarn spray is my new best friend?
You may remember my problems with patterning and what I tried  - here’s the link if you want the story from mid February - https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2019/02/peanut-butter.html
In the end, I have a new, slightly-used demo machine, an SK840 (Studio) carriage that works on my old SK580 (Singer) needle bed and the electronics on the old bed (they were built-in) work with the ‘new’ carriage.
To get DesignaKnit to work, I was told by the North American distributor that I would need to purchase a new cable because my old SL4 would not work with DAK8. I do have DAK8 on my Windows7 laptop and was not really wanting to spend the money to get the new cable, mostly because all the old stuff works and I don’t really need DAK unless I want to download a large stitch pattern and knit-from-screen (last time I did that was for a picture baby blanket and I’m so over that! https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2017/11/ever-have-one-of-those-days.html).
When I was chatting to Mike at dknits.com and giving him my tale of woe, he told me he had a software upgrade that would allow the SL4 to be used with DAK8. OMGG! He mailed it to me, I did the install, easy-peasy! It worked! Mike is my new best friend!
Seriously folks, if you need help or are considering Designaknit or cables for whatever reason, call him!