How To: Connect an SNES Controller to your Android Phone

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr Pool:
Bruno Soares wanted to play a classic Super Nintendo game on his cell phone, but it’s touch screen was unresponsive and just wasn’t cutting it as a controller. Instead of just giving up, he devised a Rube Goldberg-esque system to connect an actual SNES controller to his phone.

First, he connected his controller to an Arduino so that he could read out the state of each button. Next, he transmitted each button press out of the Arduino’s serial port and into a BlueSMIRF Bluteooth radio, which then relayed the commands wirelessly to his phone. Finally, he wrote a custom keyboard driver for Android that converted the serial Bluetooth data into keystrokes that he could use to control an SNES emulator.

More:

• Nexus One Wii Remote mod
• $2 bluetooth serial with Propeller USB Host