blast from the past Sartin style

[shoelessjoe]

I am wondering if there are any old Sartin members out there who can help me locate some stuff they might be willing to share.I would gladly pay you for it or send you another program in return.Im interested in getting a manual called introduction to non linear handicapping which is actually the k-gen manual.Or the Advanced Phase 3 Program with pre play screen.The reason for me wanting this is I have really gotten into the old Pirco group of which included Doc,Brohammer,The Hat,Purdy,Schmidt,Hambleton,Pizzola to name a few.Actually it sounds like a handicappers hall of fame.But Im really fascinated about what these guys were doing back then.Any help wouldf be appreciated.Shoeless

[traynor]

One of the most interesting applications was the one they screwed up; the Ultra Scan program with the reversed sort. Essentially you selected four or five "true contenders," then "picked the proper pace line" for each, then entered the pace lines into Ultra Scan. It was supposed to combine fps with POH%, divide by two, and generate the Ultra Scan rating. Whoever programmed it reversed the sort, so rather than selecting the two BEST entries, it selected the two WORST entries as the "Ultra Scan selections." It sounds silly on the surface, but a lot of people swore by it--big mutuels, even bigger exactas.

The bottom line was a useful concept; narrow a race to four contenders, throw out the two most likely winners, and bet both of the remaining two to win.
Good Luck

[shoelessjoe]

Thanks for the response I had heard of Ultra Scan but wasnt sure what it was.

[Dick Schmidt]

Traynor,


Though UltraScan was a truly weird program, adding percentages and velocity figs and dividing the result, but the sort was correct in every version I ever saw. I know it was correct for the PC because I wrote it, translating from the Sharp handheld. The Sharp also works correctly. I'm sure there are some old versions out there that contain errors, as Doc created the first version on the Z-80 computer, but errors were corrected long ago.

Anyway, the story Doc told was that he created UltraScan for a particularly obnoxious client who demanded a program that would catch huge longshots. Turned out it worked on other horses as well. The UltraScan algorithm was at the heart of every other program PIRCO developed after that: such as Energy, Thoromation et al. Doc used to joke that people wouldn't buy UltraScan for $79 so he sold it to them as Energy for $200.

I tried it a bit in England with the wild and happy mix of tracks and distances they have and it worked well. It was just way to difficult to gather the data (times) needed.


Dick


Freud's 23rd law: ideas endure and prosper in inverse proportion to their soundness and validity.