Arduino-based SNES controller?

[Punchinello]

I am trying to build my own arcade stick/controller that will work with real SNES hardware. I tried removing the chip that is the "brain" of the controller (V520B), and placing it on a breakout board so I could tinker with it (wire up my own buttons, etc). Essentially you could say that I am trying to re-build the entire controller using the original chip, some wires, and some arcade buttons. Seemed like a simple starter-project to me.

Wrong. The soldering was way too difficult for me (those pins are small!) and its difficult to test to see what went wrong.

This brings me to my next question -- is it posisble to mimic an SNES controller using an arduino or similar microcontroller? I think it would be much easier to work with if there was some way to get the arduino to behave like the SNES controller's V520B chip.

Any thoughts?

[armarares]

Why remove the chip?
Keep the whole board.

[Punchinello]

Why not keeo the whole board? I thought by rebuilding it I could get better connections. Soldeirng on leads to the controller was problematic in that the wires tended to rip off very easily. It was also difficult to manage with all those wires coming off the board.

[evilteddy]

The SNES controller is just 2 shift registers connected. You can simply connect the inputs to your Arduino as you normally would and then simply emulate the function of a shift register. Turns out that there's even something that would simplify the task greatly.

http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ShiftOut" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;