The invention relates to dart games and more specifically to a dart game having a dart board which included means for electronically computing and displaying the results thereof to a player after the player has impacted a series of darts against individual target areas on the board.
Some prior art dart games including electrical means, provide a plurality of target areas having normally open switch means which are connected to illuminating means for indicating the strike position of a metal tipped dart which pierces a target area to effect closing of the associated switch means by bridging the same through its metal tip. Two such types of dart games are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,501,218 issued to J. D. Hill and in U.S. Pat. No. 2,693,959 issued to A. D. Ross, Jr.
Other prior art dart games including electrical means, provide a plurality of target areas having normally open conductive means on their surfaces which are closed by a conductive projectile as it contacts portions of the conductive means and is retained thereby by some force e.g. magnetic or gravity. Two such types of dart games are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,863,665 issued to S. R. Gerosolina and U.S. Pat. No. 3,582,076 issued to C. A. Keller respectively.
Other prior art dart games included means for electrically indicating via illuminating means, the impact area of a projectile which is momentarily impacted against but does not remain against the target area. Two such dart games are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,206,196 issued to C. E. Jackson and U.S. Pat. No. 1,569,727 issued to P. Donato.
All of these prior art devices use electrical means for indicating the position on the target area struck by the dart or projectile but none of them provide electronic computations of mathematical functions in response to a series of target area strikes as does the present invention.
Another prior art dart game as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,454,276 issued to W. D. Brenkert et al discloses a dart game which utilizes electro-mechanical means for effecting counting sequences in response to successive target area impacts by a dart and indicates the cumulative results of the counting sequences on a display board after each impact. This prior art device is limited to simple arithmetic addition of successive inputs as each dart is impacted against various target areas and like the other prior art devices mentioned above, does not have the capability for performing different mathematical functions in response to a series of target area impacts thereby limiting the numerous possibilities of applications relating to the aspects of a player's skill and to the elements of chance which are available with the present invention. The Brenkert et al device also requires rather cumbersome means for providing the plurality of individual displaceable target areas utilized therein.