First up, thanks nachochess for writing the emulator! I can revisit my glory days of playing Mr. Do! now.
Secondly, I might have found the Keycode solution for us Pi owners using CoolCV-
RetroPie seems to be using SDL, and while I'm kind of a LINUX/Pi n00b (not even using NOOB yet), I did remember how to Google, and found this page:
https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDLKeycodeLookup
I used the codes on that page to map my shiny new wireless 23-key number pad - and it worked wonderfully!
Extra bonus, I can use the keypad to control both Emulation Station and MAME.. and play Mario but it is awful with a keyboard.
Thanks again, and I hope this helps some people out until the F7 bug is resolved.