So I'm totally new to any electrical / circuitry related things, but there is one project I'd like to try with my Raspberry Pi 3. Basically I've got an external PCB that has different analog IO such as a joystick, buttons, etc. I was wondering if it was possible to use the GPIO pins on the pi to directly activate the buttons, and simulate the joystick input.
Basically I'm thinking of removing said buttons / joystick etc and soldering leads to the IO the button(s), etc were initially connected to. Then piping commands through the GPIO. (Essentially automating the button press / joystick moving)
That said, I guess this isn't a common use case as I can't seem to find anything online about this and everything instead is to connect a joystick to the pi instead of the other way around.
I come from a software background so programming side of things for the GPIO should be fine, the hardware side though, I'm not sure where to start.