OmniSport 6000

The OmniSport 6000 is a discontinued swim timing console made by Daktronics, Inc., of Brookings, South Dakota, the top model of the company’s OmniSport line in the second half of the 1990s, between the earlier OmniSport 1000 and the OmniSport 2000 of 2002. It recorded each lane’s touch and split times and passed results to the meet computer over a serial connection.¹ Daktronics publishes no manual or specifications for the console; its surviving record is the interface documentation of Hy-Tek’s meet-management software, the compatibility provisions that the OmniSport 2000 still carries for it, and period discussion among timing operators.¹²³ The timers overview covers what a swim timing console does.

Results interface¶

Hy-Tek’s MEET MANAGER carried a dedicated OmniSport 6000 interface across several of its versions. The meet computer connects with a 9-pin null-modem serial cable from the jack labeled COM PORT 1 on the timer to a serial port on the computer.¹ As each athlete touches the pad, a time is stored; results carry finish and split times and are retrieved by event and heat or by race number. The console maintains multiple stored meets, each with its own date and time stamp, and older data remains accessible for corrections. The console could not store results for preliminaries and finals of the same event within one stored meet, so Hy-Tek recommended powering the console off and on before every session to open a fresh dataset.¹

Pace clock program¶

The console also ran a pace clock program for training. Hy-Tek’s Workout Manager downloaded up to ten workouts, one per lane, from the team-management software directly to the 6000’s pace clock program, with up to 64 sets per lane carrying the repeats, the interval for each set, and the rest period after it; the same feature served the Colorado Time Systems 4, 5, and 6 consoles and, later, the OmniSport 2000.⁴

Compared with the System 5 and the OmniSport 2000¶

The 6000 arrived in about 1995 or 1996: operators on the rec.sport.swimming newsgroup in 1996 described it as newly introduced, and one poster’s assessment was that it made Daktronics comparable to the Colorado system of the day, then represented by the System 5; another operator reported running more than 150 meets on Daktronics equipment with minimal problems. These are period opinions from the discussion, not measurements.³

The OmniSport 2000 succeeded it when its software first shipped on 16 August 2002. An early revision note shows the new console could be configured to work as an OmniSport 6000, and the current console still offers OMNI 6000 as a selectable bi-directional protocol on its results port, noting that older versions of Hy-Tek MEET MANAGER may require the OmniSport 6000 data; selecting it also transmits OmniSport 6000 item numbers on the real-time data output.⁵²

Documentation status¶

Daktronics no longer documents the OmniSport 6000: it appears in neither the company’s support pages nor its discontinued-product resources, and no manual or document number for it is published. Its hardware specifications, including the number of lanes and the deck inputs it accepted, are therefore not publicly recorded; the details above are those preserved by Hy-Tek’s documentation and by the OmniSport 2000’s own manual and revision history.¹²⁵

See also¶

• Timers: the timing-console overview
• OmniSport 2000: the successor console, which retains the 6000’s protocols
• OmniSport 1000: the earlier console in the line
• System 5: the Colorado Time Systems console the 6000 competed against in its day
• Daktronics: the manufacturer
• Equipment: the equipment reference

References¶

Footnotes¶

1. Hy-Tek, MEET MANAGER interface guide, Daktronics OmniSport 6000 (serial connection, stored meets, result retrieval, and the prelims/finals session limitation). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. Daktronics, OmniSport 2000 Timing Console Operation Manual (ED-13312, Rev 16, 23 May 2019), Setup Comm Ports menu (OMNI 6000 bi-directional results protocol and OmniSport 6000 RTD item numbers). ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. rec.sport.swimming, Timing Systems: Daktronics vs Colorado (August-September 1996) (period Usenet discussion; the OmniSport 6000 described as newly introduced and weighed against the CTS System 5). ↩ ↩²

4. Hy-Tek, TEAM MANAGER guide, Export Pace Clock (workout downloads to the CTS 4, 5, or 6 or the Daktronics 6000 or 2000; ten lanes, 64 sets per lane). ↩

5. Daktronics, All Sport & OmniSport Revision Histories (DD3679410, Rev 06, 5 November 2024) (OmniSport 2000 initial software release 16 August 2002; OmniSport 6000 compatibility mode noted in version 3.1.7). ↩ ↩²