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Systems Requirements and Installation Details

1) System requirements

New Blueberry 350Mhz and 400Mhz DV iMac's and G4 Servers and workstations do not need of the updates that are listed below.

The Contour Overdrive will run on any USB Mac running Mac OS 8.5.1 or later, but all Mac users should make sure that their firmware and system software is up to date. We recommend installing Mac OS 8.6 or later (Mac OS 9 is fully supported), 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. If you are running Mac OS 8.5.1 please upgrade to Mac OS 8.6 which is a free upgrade available here. 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 machine, and generally improve both performance and USB support. Since 8.6 is a free update for all USB Mac users, there's no reason to stick with an older Mac OS.
  • 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 is only required for Mac OS 8.5 and 8.5.1 and should no longer be needed under Mac OS 8.6 or later. Note that you'll have to reinstall this update after updating an existing Mac OS 8.5 to 8.5.1. If your iMac is running Mac OS 8.5 or 8.5.1 and the USB Overdrive doesn't work, this is the first thing you should check out.

2) Installation details

1/9/2001 - Apple has released Mac OS 9.1 which clears up alot of the USB driver hang problems and miscellaneous bugs. You can get it by clicking here. Contour Design recommends that every user who runs Mac OS 9 gets this update.

iMac DV/SE users can skip these updates listed in this paragraph. Classic iMac users should first install Apple's iMac Firmware Update 1.2 (updated 5/25/99) and the iMac Update 1.1. These updates are available for free on Apple's web site, and they fix several USB-related issues that may cause problems with the Contour Overdrive. Mac OS 8.6 users should run the Mac OS ROM Update 1.0 this fixes alot of USB timing problems. Older Mac's that use PCI USB cards should get the USB Adapter Card Support 1.4.1 if your card is not supported by the 1.2 release. Minimum requirements are Mac OS 8.5.1 for this update. Any user who uses Mac OS 8.5.x should upgrade to Mac OS 8.6 which is a free upgrade and is available here.

The Contour Overdrive Installer installs the following files:

  "Contour Overdrive" control panel in the Control Panels folder.

  "USB UniMouse Overdrive" extension in the Extensions folder.

  "USB Perfit Mouse Overdrive" extension in the Extensions folder.

To enable the Contour Overdrive you'll have to manually remove any previously installed Contour mouse drivers from your Extensions folder (typically the USBContourMouseModule). There are no conflicting drivers in the Mac OS itself so you don't have to worry about them if you never installed any additional USB driver. However, you probably installed a specific driver for your UniMouse if you bought it before May 1999.

The universal version of the USB Overdrive provides additional support for joysticks and gamepads and is distributed as shareware. You can download it or get more information from http://www.usboverdrive.com
Note: This is NOT the Contour Specific version, see above for Contour's version.

To learn how to use the Contour Overdrive, open the Contour Overdrive control panel and read the active help messages while moving the mouse over each item in the window. You can enable and disable active help using the "Show Active Help" menu item in the "Options" menu.

To figure out the button numbers for your device, just click each one of them while the USB Overdrive control panel is open. The appropriate button item in the list of device controls will be
selected and hilited.

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