RE: PH Origins: Navigation systems

[Klippie]

MarvinTPA said:

Reminded me immediately of this.

Me too...the first thing that went through my head.

I think it was around 2004 when I bought one of the first TomTom sat-nav’s, at the time it was a revelation my A-Z went in the bin the next day...possibly one of the best inventions ever.

[samoht]

That's very cool, I had no idea that in-car mapping pre-dated GPS satellites and computer-rendered map displays. Amazing they got it to work at all! I would have said the Eunos Cosmo GPS-based system would have been the first.

I grew up in a world where the future came from Japan like this, shame it no longer feels that way.

[robm3]

VanquishRider said:

Usget said:

Great article, I love dead-end tech like this! Fascinating to see how they used the technlogy of the time to solve the problem.

Hardly dead end actually. Many military pieces of hardware still use this technology as a back up to GPS. As if there was a conflict with a major power GPS satellites would be dead and buried in the first few hours of conflict.

Tomahawk missiles use this kind of system as a back up along with visual aerial recognition. It can't use radar as that would make it detectable.

It's no wonder the US military was so interested.

That's right, when the first gulf war was on, I was working part time on a fishing trawler. We kept losing GPS because the US had commandeered and relocated many of the GPS Satellites. Guess the GPS network was a little shaky back then.

[PunterCam]

Mr-B said:

I remember buying a TomTom in the early 2000's for a couple of hundred quid and now I use google maps on my phone which "cost" nothing (if you discount the fact that I bought the phone for other things and not as a satnav) The pace of technological change over the last few decades has been incredible.

Still use my tomtom or anything important - my iPhone sts the bed if it's precious 3G signal is lost, making detours or road closures a nightmare! One step forward, twenty back seems to be the modern way.

[Jimmy Recard]

PunterCam said:

Still use my tomtom or anything important - my iPhone sts the bed if it's precious 3G signal is lost, making detours or road closures a nightmare! One step forward, twenty back seems to be the modern way.

Get one of the many free apps that allow you to download the maps. I use one called Here

[andy_s]

Great article!

[VanquishRider]

robm3 said:

VanquishRider said:

Usget said:

Great article, I love dead-end tech like this! Fascinating to see how they used the technlogy of the time to solve the problem.

Hardly dead end actually. Many military pieces of hardware still use this technology as a back up to GPS. As if there was a conflict with a major power GPS satellites would be dead and buried in the first few hours of conflict.

Tomahawk missiles use this kind of system as a back up along with visual aerial recognition. It can't use radar as that would make it detectable.

It's no wonder the US military was so interested.

That's right, when the first gulf war was on, I was working part time on a fishing trawler. We kept losing GPS because the US had commandeered and relocated many of the GPS Satellites. Guess the GPS network was a little shaky back then.

They basically turn off public access to GPS in conflict zones so enemy systems cannot access them for targeting or navigation. Military units can still access them as they have the encryption gear.

[VanquishRider]

Jimmy Recard said:

PunterCam said:

Still use my tomtom or anything important - my iPhone sts the bed if it's precious 3G signal is lost, making detours or road closures a nightmare! One step forward, twenty back seems to be the modern way.

Get one of the many free apps that allow you to download the maps. I use one called Here

Phones can now download Google Maps for your own defined areas. Then your phone only needs the GPS signal to navigate. No data used or extra cost. Works for all countries. Free Sat Nav. Totally up to date if you do it immediately before your holiday. Only down side is it will nit react to traffic or road closures. But neither does a Tom Tom in those situations.

[Usget]

VanquishRider said:

robm3 said:

VanquishRider said:

Usget said:

Great article, I love dead-end tech like this! Fascinating to see how they used the technlogy of the time to solve the problem.

Hardly dead end actually. Many military pieces of hardware still use this technology as a back up to GPS. As if there was a conflict with a major power GPS satellites would be dead and buried in the first few hours of conflict.

Tomahawk missiles use this kind of system as a back up along with visual aerial recognition. It can't use radar as that would make it detectable.

It's no wonder the US military was so interested.

That's right, when the first gulf war was on, I was working part time on a fishing trawler. We kept losing GPS because the US had commandeered and relocated many of the GPS Satellites. Guess the GPS network was a little shaky back then.

They basically turn off public access to GPS in conflict zones so enemy systems cannot access them for targeting or navigation. Military units can still access them as they have the encryption gear.

Hadn't thought of it that way!

[xjay1337]

Klippie said:

Me too...the first thing that went through my head.

I think it was around 2004 when I bought one of the first TomTom sat-nav’s, at the time it was a revelation my A-Z went in the bin the next day...possibly one of the best inventions ever.

Certainly should go for invention of the century.

[PHMatt]

PunterCam said:

Mr-B said:

I remember buying a TomTom in the early 2000's for a couple of hundred quid and now I use google maps on my phone which "cost" nothing (if you discount the fact that I bought the phone for other things and not as a satnav) The pace of technological change over the last few decades has been incredible.

Still use my tomtom or anything important - my iPhone sts the bed if it's precious 3G signal is lost, making detours or road closures a nightmare! One step forward, twenty back seems to be the modern way.

Use Waze. If you have in car bluetooth music streaming you can link the phone to it, stream music via spotify and have the navigation interact with spotify fully integrated in the car.

[roland82]

Thanks for that, very interesting.

[alexrowe2000]

Original article on new Japanese tech from Autocar 29th January 1983

[GC8]

mch said:

Anybody remember the Etak Navigator? I recall being driven around Detroit in the late 1980s in a Corvette with one of these fitted. It had a green vector-scan CRT, flux gate compass and inertial nav. The maps were stored on a cassette tape. Primitive, but it just about worked.

M

I don't remember it, but it is my interest in it that led me to finding this old PH article. The Honda picture came up on an Etak Navigator image search. Etak pretty much created digital mapping.

[miken2k8]

In the gs300 i had last year a 99 it was like a crt tv with a cd drive in the boot. Was a nice car that was[url]

|https://thumbsnap.com/3JY6DGro[/url]

[millen]

Nice! Where did Lewis Kingston move to? Always found his tech-history articles a fascinating change from the usual PH stories.

[Lewis Kingston]

millen said:

Nice! Where did Lewis Kingston move to? Always found his tech-history articles a fascinating change from the usual PH stories.

Hello millen! Well, thank you for the kind comment – much appreciated.

I'm a freelancer and had initially planned to do 52 Origins columns and then take a break. I ended up doing 53 and my slightly delayed break then coincided neatly with the acquisition of PistonHeads by CarGurus.

While that transition took place, I got involved in a few projects – and, all of a sudden, it's November!

I've been working for some other titles in the interim, including CarGurus itself, but I have some more work with PistonHeads lined up. The decks have cleared a little, so I should be able to crack on with that in due course. If you're interested, you can also find me on Twitter.

Thanks again – and I hope that all is well.

Edited by Lewis Kingston on Monday 11th November 09:44

[millen]

Great to hear you're still looking in, Lewis.

It's always fascinating to read the history of motor-tech innovation - the flops as well as the wins - and trace back the lineage of what we now take for granted. I've just seen a summary of what the EU plans to mandate over the next few years - being something of a GOM these days I yearn for the times when everything was so much simpler. Still, we can't re-bottle the genie!

I look forward to you new articles.
All the best!