Thorobrain

[sq764]

Maybe I am not thinking of the right one, but isn't this program free with a subcription to the data files??

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=429&item=5104385106&rd=1

[JimG]

Yes and No. Thorobrain 5 is the one that is free with a couple of months download committment. I think Thorobrain 4 is a forerunner and Dave S. may have been involved with it.

I saw it on ebay, was not bidding on it, but was wondering what datafiles it uses?

Jim

[wes]

JimG
Program uses the HDW onehundred dollor per month file.
With three month of data you can get the program on CD.
wes

[KyRacer]

The Thorobrain program on ebay is the Thorobrain IV version which Dave S. wrote. Thorobrain 5 was by a different programmer and is quiet a bit different. TB4 imported files in CSW (Computer Sports World) format. CSW no longer sells the files, but Trackmaster does sell a $1 file in CSW format, called the C file I believe, or their Converter will convert their other files to that format.

While Thorobrain IV will import the Trackmaster C file, there are other problems. The paceline selection methods doesn't seem to work right any more. It doesn't seem to read the track condition correctly. TB4 is looking for the track condition like "fst or sly" and the Trackmaster file has those as "ft or sl". Someone could write a program to go in change that information to the proper form. The paceline methods will work but just doesn't consider the track conditon. You can get pace numbers and rankings but not selections.

The program no longer seems able to train. Maybe a YTK problem. It doesn't seem to handle the 0 in the the 2 digit date (04) properly. I believe the program may come back to life in a few years when we get out of this decade and into the teens. I think a converter that would go into the file and change the dates back into the 90's or forward into the teens might work. A couple of years ago, I went in by hand and change the dates in a couple of files and got the program to work properly, so some type of converter should work. I had a selector that worked well on grass and a Derby selector that worked well. Would love to get this program working again, it was a lot of fun to play with.

TB4 was a nice program. Like to here from anyone who is still using it or has found a way to use it. There was a program that converted Bris B files to the CSW format but I can't seem to get it to work either. There was also available a program that could converter Bris's Fast Chars to a format that TB4 could read. Don't know if it still works. If anyone has any converter for the CSW files let us know.

P.S. What about Thorobrain 3? Anyone use it for anything? I picked up a copy off ebay last year, but haven't really played with it much. It could import data from some of the old Sartin programs and Mitchells'' 5in1. Also had an interface for user data. I thought about trying to use if for harness racing which some users did. Haven't bet the buggies in years.

KyRacer

[eclecticapper]

My TB3 & TB4 disks are enjoying their retirement; if you can't get imported files to work properly, you can always resort to (ugh!) manual entry. I'm not sure what's available in harness data these days; I haven't played trotters since I was a teenager in NY. Used to go to Roosevelt Raceway a lot, but that was over 20 years ago. Even if you can't use the paceline features in TB3, you should still be able to use the user-defined fields. There may even have been an article about using TB3 or 4 for harness races in the old Brain Waves newsletter Dave used to produce.

[Diamond K]

A long while ago (about early 2000) I we interested in purchasing the program but was told it was Y2K incompatible. I just can't remember who this was. It looked promising at the time. Didn't Trackmaster have it available at one time?