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Playing Darts With A Lap Top!

For years now I have gone on about the move, by stealth, to do away with chalk for marking darts matches; -

1. Landlords have always hated the mess it makes, especially when somebody knocks over the box containing all the stub ends of chalk and they get trodden into a dusty mess all over the floor.
2. The Health and safety brigade want us all to use the dustless chalk which is nigh on useless, difficult to get and quite expensive anyway.
3. Schools don’t have boxes of chalk lying around any more that dads can get their kids to nick.
4. Some pubs try to use, whiteboards, or the equivalent, and special marking pens that are designed to dry up halfway through a darts match.

Of course another big problem with marking the dart board during a match is that the players doing it have to be able count properly, or else it puts off the throwers causing upsets all round. Less and less players appear able, or willing to mark boards (and I include myself in that due to my failing health.) For many teams the answer is to install an electronic scoreboard of one sort or another.  Not so many years ago they were universally frowned upon by leagues, but now, as more and more pubs are being done up, they are being installed as regular fixtures and leagues are being forced to reluctantly accept them. The variety of scoreboards seems to be endless with some better than others for displaying past scores and others easier to use. None of them are particularly cheap and some teams have problems in persuading their existing landlords to fork out for them. However, this is the age of the computer and the computer has the answer for everything.

Some weeks ago I went to an away match and the pubs darts team were using one of their players Lap Tops to keep and display the score for the match. It seemed a novel idea and it was many weeks later before I really appreciated the benefits of the idea as our team lost several of our older players who could count and who had taken turns marking the match board. Somebody suggested that we should give the computer idea a try, but all the youngsters in the team could see, were problems. Practical Big AL said, “Leave it me. I’ll get it sorted,” and I did. (Click For Info On Scoring Prog Download Link)

The next week I trundled into the pub with my darts case, Lap Top and large computer screen. 5 minutes later it was all set up and after a couple of minor adjustments to make the trailing wires safe, we were ready to play. The program was a free download, although there are others that come with a small charge, and it works very well. It’s easy to use and with an extra, fairly large, old style, freestanding screen turned back towards the players, gives a clearer view of the scores than chalk and board ever would. A thought has just occurred to me of another advantage with using a Lap Top and that is if there was a power cut you could still see the scoreboard on the Lap Top as it would revert to battery! (Of course you might not be able to see the dartboard though!) 

It definitely gives a better impression to walk out of the house and go to the pub on a darts night with a computer under my arm instead of just carrying my darts!