I've connected an arduino uno to very simple on or off buttons, but now I do not know how to test if my connections are good or not. Ultimately I want to make it into an arcade stick, what i'm looking for is any example code that I could use to maybe test what i've wired to see if it actually has good connections and can be read.
Make the inputs switch on and off an LED - modify the basic blink sketch. Do this one-at-a-time for each button or wire up a few extra LEDs to do them all at once.