Connecting a HDE keyboard to a Kindle Fire I brought a HDE keyboard:  


  Connects to your 7" tablet via USB 2.0 A-Type Male Adapter. Please make sure your tablet has a USB Type A Female to accept this plug type. Also, your device must have a USB host in order for the keyboard to function. Please consult the manufacturer of your tablet for those details.  


for my Kindle Fire 1st Generation. I got the adapter to connect the A female to USB micro on the Kindle.  Of course I didn't read all the through on this one, because I now need to have a host USB connection in order for the keyboard to work with the Kindle.

Any advice or do I have to ditch the keyboard and mark it as a bad deal?
The USB port is not powered on the Kindle Fire, and thus cannot host USB devices.  So, a wired external keyboard connected directly to your kindle is pretty much out of the question.

What if you were to power the keyboard some other way?

Well... that seemed to be the question this one gentleman asked himself.  He decided that connecting a powered USB 2.0 hub to the kindle, and then connecting the devices to the hub would be the way to go.  He found he needed a USB OTG cable to start the process.  He hooked up the hub, plugged in the mouse, and saw a mouse cursor.  He connected a keyboard, and could type.

So.. that's my advice.  Get yourself a powered USB hub.  Of course, unless you then got creative with supplying power to the hub via a battery pack, you are limited to using the keyboard to wherever you can plug the hub in... but that's still a step in the right direction.