Any progress on XBox analog stick hacking?

[dema]

I was wondering if anyone knew if progress was being made on hacking an XBox analog stick on the standard controller? Could a hack be used with a 49-way joystick? The more I try playing games on the XBox with only the directional pad (and realizing how many games can't be played with that control), the more I realize for the XBox to be a top notch program it needs to have an analog control.

Is there someone talented enough out there who knows how to do such a hack? I'd pay someone to hack a controller in order to get analog stick capabilities.

Thanks for any input.
T.J.

[dema]

My wife just asked me why I couldn't just physically mount the XBox controller into the arcade control panel and use that to preserve the analog controls. While that idea in itself isn't feasible, it did bring up a good point. Couldn't I make a set-up where I preserve as much of the original controller as possible? Would I be able to mount the PCB board into a control panel, swap out the thumbstick with a joystick (or bore a hole into the center of the thumbstick and crazy glue the joystick into the hole), and then map the digital direction pad and the buttons to the CP in the standard MAME cabinet manner? This way I could distance the buttons and joysticks properly, with only the primary thumbstick being right above the PCB board in the control panel. I know that the left and right triggers wouldn't be analog, but that's not as important to me as getting the joystick analog.

I was wondering if this was a viable alternative solution to having a digital Xbox hack or nothing.