This weekend we were doing a 350 person corporate alpine race, three courses, two runs a day for two days. I usually use an S-4 with an 18 channel isolator/input box for backup. I just let it run unattended, with one person recording the bib numbers of each start group, and then they periodically put a bib number on the printed tape. My old DPU-411 failed about 20 minutes into the 1st run, not to return. I didn't have anything else handy, so I just plugged the RS-232 cable from the S-4 into a spare laptop and ran a text capture in Hyperterminal. Worked like a charm. We had a few instances where we needed a time, and I could just scroll the screen back and find what I needed.
Obviously not a long term answer, but it might get you out of a jam sometime.
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