SPORTident cards can be read out by PCs connected to a SI station. It could be inconvenient to operate a PC in some situations such as small competitions, training etc. SPORTident offers a solution for this problem by means of its printing station and a portable thermal printer. If you want another highly portable solution you can consider this program. You have to own a PalmOS handheld, optionally a portable printer and the necesseary cabling to connect the device to the SI station equipped with serial link cable.
The program can be downloaded from here.
Extract the ZIP file which contains the SICard.prc file and the documentation. Install the SICard.prc file with the Install Tool as usually onto your Palm device.
Printing requires PalmPrint or SCS Print Server from Stevens Creek Software LLC. PalmPrint is compatible with Seiko DPU 3445 (can be used by IrDA) and DPU 414 printers offered by SPORTident.
Connect a SI master station programmed to card read-out to any PalmOS (2.0 or higher) compatible handheld with serialport. You will need a small male-male 9 pin null modem adaptor (X) to connect the SI station cable to a HotSync cable or cradle. I recommend to use HotSync cable instead of a cradle.
Before you start reading cards at a given training or competition you need to set the program's preferences. After you have started the program select Preferences... from the application's Options menu.
Specify the 0-time of the competition in 24 hour format (Select digit, tap up and down arrows). Set it to 0:00:00 if stations operate in training mode. If there is no start punch (no start station is used) but there is a checking station at the start (as usual at normal competition practice) then the check time can be used to calculate the start time. In this case you have to give the number of minutes the checking is done before starting. If you have an IrDA printer available (and PalmPrint is installed) at the read-out you can check Automatic printing. This enables printing card data immediately after read.
In the main form of the program there are three (two if you have not installed PalmPrint) buttons. You read can read cards one-by-one pressing the Read Card button. After you pressed the button you have approx. 10 seconds to insert a SI card into the reading station. As card data are read it is displayed in the progrm's main form.
The first line contains card number and start number. The next line is the checking time in 12 hour format. The third line is the start time either from a start punch or calculated from check time. After that follow the punches. The first 30 punch in the form of (code) splittime legtime. For controls over 30 only codes are displayed. The last line contains the finishing time and time of the run-in.
After card data are read you can save it into a Memo Pad record by tapping the Save to Memo button. These records are saved under Unfiled category. You can use Palm Desktop software to HotSync Memo Pad records to a Desktop PC or you can edit them on the handheld. If PalmPrint is installed on the device you can print the card data directly from the program by tapping the Print button.
The program calculates wrong split and legtimes if there are punches on the card with times before and punches with times after the 0-time. It is a rare case concerning competitors.
The program is a freeware, but it is not public domain. Copyright is reserved. The author makes no warranty with respect to the software or documentation and is not liable for any losses resulting from the use of the software. This software is developed independently from SPORTident.