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I'm surprised nobody mentioned the homebrew SNESKey adaptor yet. This allows you to hook a wide variety of game controllers (including NES, SNES and some Atari/Genesis controllers) to your computer's parallel port (remember when computers had those?). There was even a DOS program you could run your old-school DOS emulators under, which messed with some interrupt vectors so that it would trap control pad activity on the LPT port and translate it directly to keyboard presses (so it would work with pretty much any emulator without modifications).

Best part about this, was the ONLY parts it required were a common rectifier diode (or 2-3) to siphon the controller's power directly off the port.

I found some directions somewhere on the net for modifying snes controllers to use the lpt /db-25 / parrelel port. not the most advanced solution but very funn for playing emu games

Resources:

mod instrustions
XP Driver


also psx with usb adapter is very nice ... espically for tony hawk games.

The SNES controller is by far one of the best controllers ever. And, with a parallel port adapter, it makes emulation a truly wonderful thing (and as accurate and realistic as possible, really). I originally considered a Playstation controller and adapter, but I just don't like the PSX controller. It doesn't feel the same. I also still don't know which button is O, or X, or Triangle, or whatever.

The SNES pad, though, can do a majority of Nintendo system emulation (which happens to be my personal favorite, if you couldn't tell). The NES, SNES, GameBoy, and GameBoy Advance all have similar layouts with their controllers, and all of the buttons on the SNES pad can be laid out in emulators for all of the above systems, and it works near perfectly in all of them. It definitely works with the Atari 2600, too, via Stella. It also works for the Sega Genesis, but it's a little bit clunky for games that need all 6 buttons. For 3 button games, though, it's a piece of cake.

It unfortunately can't do much in the way of Playstation emulating, though I haven't tried it yet. I just know it's 2 buttons short (L2 and R2), as well as the 2 control sticks. Same goes for Nintendo 64 (damn that controller).

Shameless Self Promotion:
I'm currently working on a project based on a PC, the Knoppix distro, some emulators, my SNES pad, and a crappy custom-made frontend. If it weren't for my SNES pad that I can bring anywhere with me, I wouldn't have even come up with the idea for it. /SSP

Funny you mention snes pads because my buddy and I use them to play Mario Kart... in emulation. With a little jimmy rigging you can hook it up to your parallel port.http://snespad.emulationworld.com

You can't get the aiming you get with a mouse, using a hand held controller.

Not all games are traditional first-person shooters. Console games such as Goldeneye and Super Mario Sunshine are designed to make aiming with an analog joystick relatively easy.

Add a keyboard to this mix and there is no way the console even rates close.

I'll play you in emulated Super Street Fighter II, with you on the keyboard and mouse and me on an LPT-converted Super NES joypad.

Bah, I got a decent geforce2 w/tv-out card for my pc on ebay a year ago for $50.

Which means that if you want to change from playing your game on a TV to playing a game that requires a more advanced video card, you have to shut down your computer, open the case, take your TV out card out, put in your Geforce 4, close the case, turn on your computer, play your game, shut down your computer, open the case, take your Geforce 4 out, put in your TV out card, close the case, turn on your computer, and turn your computer back on. That is, unless your computer has two AGP ports.

the hard part is cramming a gc controller into your game port.

That's already been done well for Super NES controllers and N64 controllers. Both have enough buttons for GBA games.

if this is in an NES box i would buy one for sure. i have been able to master any controller since!

Well, you can always build your own!
Simple parallel port interface, just uses 5 diodes. (Although, I needed to add a transistor)

Of course the Linux Joystick Driver supports it!

I just built me a two gamepad adapter for my
original gamepads, with an emulator you get that great old NES corners-of-joypad-cutting-into-hand feeling!

Before I do that, is anybody aware of a SNES - Paralell adapter?

Plans for such an adapter are on the site yerricde linked to.

I love playing Donkey Kong Country, but playing it emulated presents a problem because I do not have a controller.

If you don't want to buy a game pad for your PC, why not just solder your Super NES game pad into a PC parallel port connector?

IANAL.... but I was employed by ZTnet (hosting Zophar's domain and many other emulator sites) as Director of New Business (hehe a .com business title if you ever heard one) around three years ago when there were other troubles with Nintendo .UltraHLE was hosted on ZTnet and at the time of the release I was one of the few people who actually knew who the author was. Nintendo obviously blew some steam but what we found to work the best was to ignore them. If they served us we would do something but cease and desist letters are pretty much a scare tactic. Sam, My advice is just wait it out.

As for wiring it up, that's really easy, because it's already been done. Check out the SNESpad website, which has all the instructions one needs to wire up a nes or snes or almost any other type of console controller for use as a regular joystick, as well as drivers, I believe they mention a linux driver as well. The connection is extremely simple to do.

Using something like this, it should not be too difficult to very cheaply allow yourself a few extra buttons you can use with your feet.

The Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (also XMAME available) project includes sound emulation support for just about every classic arcade game that it emulates. Not to even mention that its sound cores seem to be the best ones available, for example the YM-2151 emulation is the most accurate sound simulation ever written.

Check out also Qplayer (For standalone playing of CPS2 system games' sounds and music) and NeoJukeBox (For standalone playing of Neo Geo music and sounds).