Alessandro Levi Montalcini http://www.usboverdrive.com
Corso Re Umberto 10 mailto:support@usboverdrive.com
10121 Torino
Italy
• Introduction
◊ The USB Overdrive is a universal USB driver that handles all USB mice, trackballs, joysticks and gamepads from any manufacturer and lets you configure them either globally or on an application-specific basis. It reads all kinds of wheels, buttons, switches and controls and supports scrolling, keyboard emulation, launching and complex macros as well as all the usual stuff like clicking, control-clicking and so forth. The USB Overdrive can easily handle several USB devices at once- I have two mice, one trackball, two joysticks and one gamepad connected to the same iMac, and each of them comes from a different manufacturer.
◊ Because each control in each device can be fully configured, the USB Overdrive lets you use any joystick or gamepad with any game, including the ones that don’t support Apple’s InputSprocket. You can map your joystick movements and buttons to the keyboard and mouse to make the game believe you’re playing on the keyboard, and you can do this mapping separately for each game so that it’s immediately available as soon as the game is launched.
◊ For games that already use InputSprocket, the USB Overdrive quietly gives control to the device-specific configuration panels provided by the manufacturer, or to the generic ones provided by Apple with Mac OS 9 or the latest Game Sprockets.
◊ The mouse settings allow you to speed up your daily tasks by assigning useful actions to all the extra buttons and wheels in your USB mouse. You’ll typically want to assign a control-click to the right button for easy contextual menu acces, and enable document scrolling if your mouse has a scrolling wheel.
◊ The Control Panel includes an active help feature that explains each command and option as you move the cursor around.
• System requirements
◊ The USB Overdrive will run on any USB Mac running Mac OS 8.5 or later, but all Mac users should make sure that their firmware and system software is up to date. To use the Mac OS built-in USB drivers and enable full InputSprocket support you’ll need Mac OS 8.6 or later and the Apple Game Sprockets 1.7.3 or later. I recommend installing Mac OS 8.6 or Mac OS 9, the latest version of the Apple Game Sprockets, any Mac OS ROM updates that may apply, and the latest firmware updates for your machine. Most of of these updates are available for free on Apple's web site, and they fix several USB-related issues that may cause problems with the USB Overdrive. Here are a couple of hints about the updates:
- Full system software updates (such as Mac OS 8.6 or 9.0) can be installed on any USB Mac, and generally improve both performance and USB support. Since 8.6 is a free update for all Mac users, there's no reason to stick with an older version of the Mac OS.
- Game Sprockets 1.7.3 and later include updated USB mouse and gaming device drivers, so you’ll want to install them even if you never play games. The latest version is always available on Apple’s web site.
- Firmware Updates such as the iMac Firmware Update and G3 Firmware Update should always be installed. Exception: if you have a blue G3 and plan to install a third-party G4 upgrade you may want to double-check the G3 ROM block issue discussed on MacInTouch. Because firmware updates are slightly more complex than other software upgrades, be sure to follow the supplied instructions carefully.
- Mac OS ROM Updates may no longer be needed after a full system software update. For example, the Mac OS ROM Update 1.0 is useful under Mac OS 8.6 if the version of your Mac OS ROM file (inside the System folder) is earlier than 1.6, but should not be installed under Mac OS 9 or if the version of your Mac OS ROM file is greater than 1.6.
- The iMac Update 1.1 was only required for Mac OS 8.5 and 8.5.1 and should no longer be needed under Mac OS 8.6 or later.
• Installation
◊ The USB Overdrive Installer installs the following files:
- USB Overdrive control panel in the Control Panels folder;
- USB Mouse Overdrive extension in the Extensions folder;
- USB Joystick Overdrive extension in the Extensions folder.
◊ The two extensions are disabled by default and only become active if you select one of the "Use Custom Drivers" options in the control panel’s Options menu (see below for more info). When disabled, the icons change from the standard USB driver icon to a generic extension icon and the extensions themselves are never loaded by the Mac OS. There is no need to manually remove them from the Extensions folder.
◊ To enable USB Overdrive's universal, non-specific mouse and joystick drivers you may have to manually remove any device-specific mouse and joystick drivers from your Extensions folder. There are no such drivers in the Mac OS so you don't have to worry about them if you never installed any USB driver on your machine. However, you probably installed a specific driver for your mouse when you bought it. This typically includes one or more extensions whose name starts with "USB" and one or more control panels. Because these drivers only work with their own device, the Mac's USB software thinks they are the best match for that specific device when it compares them to other available drivers. Moving these drivers out of the Extensions folder allows the USB software to load the USB Overdrive instead.
◊ You do not have to remove any device-specific InputSprocket extensions. These extensions won’t conflict with USB Overdrive, and they allow you to configure your device using Apple’s InputSprocket in games that support it.
◊ You also don't have to remove any USB drivers for devices that are not mice, trackballs, joysticks or gamepads. This includes USB drivers for printers, zip disks, superdisks, serial adapters, scanners, cameras, audio devices and so forth. The USB Overdrive does not handle any of these devices, so none of them should conflict with it.
◊ If you ever wanted to uninstall the USB Overdrive from your system, all you have to do is move the USB Overdrive control panel and the two USB Mouse Overdrive and USB Joystick Overdrive extensions from their respective folders to the Trash.
• Custom drivers
◊ The USB Overdrive can use either the new Mac OS built-in mouse and joystick/gamepad USB drivers or its own custom ones. The built-in drivers have better InputSprocket support so they are selected by default when you install the USB Overdrive. The custom drivers are provided for people who can’t install the latest Game Sprockets or the Mac OS 8.6 update, because the old built-in drivers that were part of Mac OS 8.5 and 8.6 didn’t provide the required hooks for the USB Overdrive.
◊ I recommend that all users install Mac OS 8.6 or later and the latest Game Sprockets, and use the Mac OS built-in USB drivers instead of the custom ones.
◊ To switch from one set of drivers to the other, use the appropriate items in the Options menu of the control panel’s main menu bar. To enable the requested drivers after a switch, you should either restart your Mac or unplug your USB mouse and gaming devices and plug them back in.
◊ Devices handled by the custom drivers are listed in the Options menu with a "*" suffix.
• OEM licensing
◊ Sorry, OEM licenses and custom versions are no longer available. The shareware version of the USB Overdrive may not be bundled with any hardware device, although you can still point your customers to my web site for direct download. I am still available for custom programming jobs, so don't hesitate to contact me if you need a USB or InputSprockets driver for your USB device, or any other kind of Mac utility.
◊ Registration codes should never be distributed or otherwise revealed.
• Version history
◊ 1.3 - Rewrote most of the low-level part to get rid of the custom USB drivers and use Apple's standard ones instead, which makes the Overdrive fully compatible with Mac OS 9 and the new Game Sprockets. The custom drivers are still available for use under Mac OS 8.x without Game Sprockets, and a new option in the Options menu can activate and deactivate them. Added a very cool accelerated scrolling option for the mouse wheel and an absolute cursor movement mode for joysticks and gamepads to allow better control in flight simulator games. Fixed an incompatibility with the Griffin iMate ADB to USB adapter. Added a note about the new behavior of the Clicked Wheel settings. Removed the "Disable InputSprocket" option.
◊ 1.2 - Although the interface hasn't changed much, this release contains a lot of improvements and fixes. Here's a summary of the most important ones:
- Replaced all the old 68K code with faster native PowerPC code for maximum performance.
- Added mouse cursor movement for joysticks and gamepads. You can now control your computer without a mouse, and use a joystick or gamepad to play most flight simulators.
- Improved document scrolling in all applications. Among other things, the scrollbar closest to the mouse cursor is now chosen and palette support has been added.
- Added an option to set the number of lines to scroll.
- Added support for a new Launch URL action.
- Fixed double click so that it can now be used to collapse windows.
- Auto Scroll no longer requires a button to be held down, you can now click it to enable Auto Scroll and click again later to disable it.
- Added a new Auto Move option that automatically moves the mouse cursor to the default button in dialogs and alert boxes (note: this feature does not work in Office 98 applications).
- One-button mice such as the Apple mouse now always map their only button to the standard click. This is useful if you want to swap the left and right button on a two or three buttons mouse without losing the default behavior of the Apple mouse.
- Added workarounds for some USB devices that don't properly implement the USB HID standard.
- Mac OS 8.5 or later is now required to run the USB Overdrive, and Mac OS 8.6 or later is recommended. Mac OS 9 is fully supported.
◊ 1.1 - Added a cool Auto Scroll feature that doesn't require a mouse wheel. New application-specific mouse speed settings can override the Mouse control panel. Added or improved support for Logitech and Kensington wheel mice, CH Products and Saitek joysticks and gamepads, and the P.I. Engineering Ymouse adapter. Automatic joystick calibration now handles all kinds of poorly calibrated devices. Added support for two additional mouse buttons and an option to choose which button is assigned to the mouse wheel. The Options menu now displays the list of captured devices and provides some basic information about them. Fixed a bunch of minor problems that were reported for version 1.0.
