For those of you who are interested in hacking an SNES pad, I picked up one that's very easy to work with. It has a soldering point for a ground connection (however, to wire all buttons, two ground connections are necessary), and all of the contacts are exposed. Plus, you can get it brand-new for cheap ($5) at basically 1 out of every 2 GameStops (in my experience). It's by Pelican, but it doesn't appear to be featured on their website. It is called simply "Controller", and its UPC is 708056400309. Strangely enough, there is no IC proper; I think that it's housed in a big, shallow, black lump (made out of the same rubber-type stuff that covers contacts on first party PCBs. By the way, what is that stuff?) that lies at the top of the board. In addition, the directional pads don't require flux, as they're solid plates, not those intricate, interwoven squiggles.
Has anyone encountered one that could be better?