Darts goes electric

Press, 6 October 1988, Page 6

Darts goes electric

PA Auckland The unthinkable is about to happen to thousands of regular New Zealand pub goers. Darts, the most traditional of pub games, is set to receive the full brunt of technology — and go electronic. An American company unveiled its Super 6 English Mark darts machine to New Zealanders for the first time in Auckland. While' Aucklanders were initially cautious about the new technology, American Sam Zammuto, who is promoting the game, said New Zealanders would join nine million others now playing worldwide. But Charlie Channell, a darts veteran of nine years and the New Zealand open singles champion, doubts whether English Mark darts will seriously take off. “While it looks flashy, quite simply it is not as competitive as the darts game we know,” he said. The Super 6 looks like an outsize video game and offers players, at 50c a time, a choice of eight games including favourites such as 501, 301, Count Up and Cutthroat. While electronic wizardry, among other things, adds up and subtracts a player’s score, the most obvious change lies in the dart and the board. The dart is not steel-tipped but plastic, and never weighs more than 14gms. The board is a honeycomb mesh designed to receive the dart.