CarAlarms.com 750GT-2 User Manual

GameTime

INSTRUCTION GUIDE

™

Model 750GT-2

CONGRATULATIONS!

The GameTime™, manufactured and designed by Excalibur Electronics, is the best timekeeper for any activity where time is critical in two-player games. It offers a wide variety of preset game options that cover just about every situation you can think of. And if you need a unique game option, you can set it up yourself, and the GameTime™ remembers the settings so you can use it any time you like!

In a dramatic breakthrough, GameTime’s™ delay option solves one of the biggest problems in modern chess – dealing sanely with sudden-death time controls. At this setting, the start of each clock is delayed at every move by a preset number of seconds. It eliminates frantic and silly scrambles that have nothing to do with chess and everything to do with outdated equipment.

The GameTime™ also features an alternative to the USCF delay option called the accumulate option. At this setting a bonus time is added to a players remaining time after their move is made. The use of this bonus time is common in FIDE tournaments.

The preset game options – more than 90 in all – are the key to the ease of use. Each preset option offers these time controls, or a combination:

• Primary and/or second time controls, such as 40 moves in two hours (40/2)

• Sudden-death time controls such as Game/30 For example, preset game option 60 offers a primary time control of 40/2 and G/60 minutes, perfect for weekend chess tournaments. GameTime™ also offers preset options for Go players and exciting variations such as hourglass, which subtracts time from one clock and adds it to the other!

Those who can’t wait to start using their GameTime™ can get a quick start with Chapter 1. For an introduction to GameTime™ and its features, read Chapter 2 through 4. When you’re ready for advanced features, dig into Chapter 5 and 6. Go players should make sure they read Chapter 7, and Word game players should read Chapter 8. Appendix gives you a table of the preset time controls, formatted for easy photocopying

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Quick Start

How about a nice game of Chess? 5 How about a nice crossword game? 6 How about a nice game of Go? 7

2. Introduction Getting acquainted with GameTime™ 8

3. Preset Time Controls The only options you may ever need 12

4. Additional Game Options

Getting the most out of GameTime™ 14 Setting the FIDE bonus time option 17

5. Custom Time Controls Setting your own time controls 20

6. Special Time Controls Time controls for the adventurous 21

7. Time Controls For Go Players Byo-Yomi and Canadian overtime 22

8. Time Controls For Word Games Hold and Courtesy Draw Indicators 24

Appendix A: Preset Time Controls 27

CHAPTER 1. QUICK START

This chapter is for those impatient types who are already familiar with chess clocks and want to begin using GameTime™ immediately, or for those who hate reading manuals. If you want a slower introduction to GameTime™ move to Chapter 2.

Your GameTime™ requires 4 AA batteries. The battery compartment door is on the back of GameTime™, under the serial number plate. Install batteries as shown below. (When the contrast control on the side of the unit can no longer darken the LCD segments, it’s time to change them. Battery life is about 500 hours).

OK, now that the batteries are in….

The unit will beep when batteries are installed. If it does not beep, please use a pointed object and press the ACL button recessed on the bottom of the unit. If that fails to cor-

rect the problem, check battery installation. Numbers will appear on the display panel, if they don’t, adjust the brightness control wheel (see diagram, facing page).

Each time GameTime™ is turned on, the clock will reset for a new game. The ON/OFF button is located on the underside to prevent turning the clock off during play, accidentally or otherwise! Another safeguard is built in – to turn GameTime™ off, you must hold the ON/OFF button down for a few seconds.

How about a nice game of Chess?

Let’s set up GameTime™ for your first game – a “sudden-death” contest with five minutes for each side. This time control is officially called “Game in 5 minutes.” Most of us call this kind of game “blitz” or “speed chess,” and it’s what we play for fun and for practice.

For the sake of this example, you take the White pieces.

1. Black, in this case your opponent chooses the side of the board (left or right) he wishes the clock to be placed on. Right-handed players will most likely choose to place the clock on the right. (USCF rules require you to move and hit the clock with the same hand.)

2. Level GameTime’s™ PLUNGERS.

3. Slide the PAUSE/PLAY switch to PAUSE.

4. Reset GameTime™ by holding down the ON/OFF button on the underside of the clock for a few seconds. Now release the button and press it again to turn GameTime™ on.

5. Press the WHITE button until the word “FIRST” appears on your side of the clock.

6. Next, let’s choose the time control. Press the SELECT button, PRESET 05 will probably appear on the display.

If a different preset appears on the display, change to PRESET 05by pressing the + or – keys. You’ve set up a standard time control of five minutes for each player. The chart of “PRESET DEFINITIONS” on GameTime’s™ underside shows you the number codes that correspond to your 96 presets. (For practice, find “G/05m” on the chart.)

7. Slide the PAUSE/PLAY switch PLAY.

8. Black now presses his plunger to start your “White’s clock. This is very important. Every move, including White’s first, must be counted! (Your clock’s move counter relies on this rule.)

Watch your Kingside!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Your clock comes preset for a two-second delay for each moveduring SUDDEN time control. (For a discussion of the advantages of a delay, and how to change this setting, see Chapter 4.) Your time elapsed display won’t change until the delay period ticks down.

Two great features worth noticing

Once you’ve played your first game, you appreciate two “can’t believe-you-ever-gotalong-without-them” features of your new GameTime™:

• When you pressed your plunger to start the game, the DELAY indicator counted down two seconds before my GameTime™ indicator actually began to count down. This feature returns some fairness to sudden-death time controls. For example, if I was down to my lone King and you had a Rook and King, the two-second delay meant that I couldn’t steal the game by trying to run you out of time before you could mate me. As long as you made a move within that two-second grace period, you never lost time on your clock.

• When my time expired, a flag began to flash on my side of the display, and a red light began to blink. I couldn’t wait for your flag to drop, too, and then shrug ingenuously as if I didn’t know who had really won.

Playing the next game…and the next

When you are ready to play a new game, level the PLUNGERS. Press the ON/OFF button on the underside of the clock for a couple of seconds until the display clears, and then press the ON/OFF button again. The GameTime™ is already set to the last preset time control you selected.

We are ready for a new game.

How about a nice CrossWORD game?

You must tell GameTime™ you want to use crossWORD game mode, so that it knows to count-up the time once the main time has been used up. When in WORD mode, GameTime™ shows the overtime condition by turning on the appropriate players FLAG. Some digital clocks that do not have a FLAG symbol, place a minus sign in

front of the time to indicate it is displaying overtime time.

Generally, word game tournaments allow 25 minutes per player. This corresponds to PRESET 14. You need not worry about the DELAY feature, since selecting WORD mode will eliminate the Chess DELAY feature.

Follow this procedure to set your clock for a Word game tournament:

1. Level GameTime’s™ PLUNGERS.

2. Slide the PAUSE/PLAY switch to PAUSE.

3. Reset GameTime™ by holding down the ON/OFF button on the underside of the

clock for a few seconds. Now release the button and press it again to turn GameTime™ on.

4. Press the SELECT button to see the word PRESET on the display.

5. Use the + and – buttons to change the preset number to 14.

6. Press the SELECT button until you see the word WORD on the display.

7. Use the + button to select On.

8. Slide the PAUSE/PLAY switch to PLAY.

Playing the next game…and the next

We are ready for a new game.

How about a nice game of Go?

Selecting a PRESET between 84 and 91 will cause the word GO to appear on the display. This is a constant reminder that GameTime™ is in Go mode. In Go mode, the move counter will increment on each players turn.

Presets 84 to 87 use the Byo-Yomi overtime, and presets 88 to 91 use the Canadian overtime.

Follow this procedure to set your clock for a Go tournament game:

1. Level GameTime’s™ PLUNGERS.

2. Slide the PAUSE/PLAY switch to PAUSE.

3. Reset GameTime™ by holding down the ON/OFF button on the underside of the

clock for a few seconds. Now release the button and press it again to turn GameTime™ on.

4. Press the SELECT button to see the word PRESET on the display.

5. Use the + and – buttons to change to a preset number between 84 and 91.

6. Slide the PAUSE/PLAY switch to PLAY.

Playing the next game…and the next

We are ready for a new game.

CHAPTER 2. INTRODUCTION

Getting acquainted with GameTime™

In this chapter we’ll walk around the GameTime™ clock, check under the hood, kick the tires and get acquainted with all the knobs and gizmos on the dashboard.

What makes GameTime™ tick?

Remove the back base and insert four AA batteries, making sure to follow the diagram in each battery slot so that the polarity (+ or -) of the batteries is correct.

The unit will beep when batteries are installed. If it does not beep, use a pointed object and press the ACL button recessed on the bottom of the unit. If that fails to correct the problem, check battery installation. Numbers will appear on the display panel, if they

don’t, adjust the brightness control wheel (see diagram on page 4).

Once over quickly

Let’s take a quick look at the GameTime’s™ controls, shown on page 4.

When you’re playing a game, the display panel shows the time remaining for each player, the number of moves made so far, and similar details. When setting up a game, it shows the options you can choose from.

When you slide the PAUSE/PLAY switch to PAUSE, you can adjust a game’s time or adjust options for a game in progress. Slide the switch to PLAY when you are ready to resume playing.

When you’ve set the GameTime™ to PAUSE, press the SELECT button to start choos- ing a preset time control and other game options. Each time you press SELECT, you see a different type of game option. Press the + and – buttons to change the options value or to switch between On or OFF. (When you’re not selecting game options, these buttons have different functions – COUNTER and WHITE.)

When you PAUSEa game in progress, press the COUNTER button to adjust the move counter value.

Before a game begins when you PAUSE the clock, press the WHITE button to set which player moves FIRST. (In chess, the player with the white pieces always makes the first move.)

During PLAY or PAUSE modes, the initial time control settings may be verified by pressing and holding down the VERIFY button. Each available non-zero time control period will be displayed when the pressing and holding down process is repeated. The words PRIMARY, SECOND and SUDDEN will display with the time control during the verification process.

The plungers control which player’s clock is counting down. Press the plunger on the right to start the clock on the left, and vice versa. The two clock displays show the amount of time each player has remaining in that time control.

Selecting game options before play starts

You can select the entire range of game settings before you start a game.

1. Level the PLUNGERS.

2. Slide the PAUSE/PLAY switch to PAUSE.

+ 19 hidden pages

CarAlarms.com 750GT-2 User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual