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We can smugly look back and laugh at this 'tech'. But a future generation will look at us and our 'Google Maps' (it always is) and think how primitive our direc

We can smugly look back and laugh at this 'tech'. But a future generation will look at us and our 'Google Maps' (it always is) and think how primitive our direction finding is. In the future with self driving everything, maps might go the way of phone numbers, not something worthy of committing to memory what was once learned by rote. At best your phone might show you a personalised 'tube map' with just a few points of interest pertinent to your existence. In the 90's we had the last word in route planning software, you could print out your route and take it in the car with you. You had an advantage over everyone else if you had Microsoft's Autoroute. This advantage could mean discovering a route you had been taking for years thinking it was a 'shortcut' was anything but. You could find the actual shortcut. Then we had efforts like the Garmin products that are now a bit clunky. With it the people driving off a cliff because sat nav told them to. During this time came the end of being able to get that optimal route because of driving skill. No longer could you get to a party or gathering and, in small talk, divulge details of that epic shortcut that shaved hours off your journey time. This era of discovery, albeit sometimes imagined discovery of a better route, came to an end. The route we do is the route Google tells us and all distances are measured in time, not miles or kilometres.

userbinator 4y ago
with just a few points of interest pertinent to your existence. Pertinent to your existence as a cash-cow to be milked by the corporations, and as a slave to be controlled by the government, no doubt. I vaguely remember one story, and there's probably plenty of other dystopian sci-fi based on this premise.
CraigJPerry 4y ago
>> You had an advantage over everyone else if you had Microsoft's Autoroute Now that’s a blast from the past! I remember being super excited to show my grandpa autoroute in the late 90s. I remember being somewhat deflated as i slowly realised a simple A-Z https://collins.co.uk/pages/a-z https://collins.co.uk/pages/a-z - the ubiquitous handbook in every 90s car (at least in the UK) was still vastly superior. A-Z’s killer feature over its price advantage (you don’t need a PC back when PC ownership was low), it’s ease of use (it’s a small book and it’s always in your drivers door pocket right at hand when you need it), was its ability to re-route on the fly.
PopAlongKid 4y ago
>Microsoft's Autoroute. Not familiar with that one, but MS Streets & Trips, available from mid-aughts until about 2013, was a great product (I still have an installable licensed version that I use). For planning and documenting road trips, it is a great tool, and also can optimize stops to minimize distance, for example I used it once to plan the shortest route for making over 100 stops all within about 10 miles of my starting point. It also can generate turn by turn directions. More than once, before I had a smartphone and online maps, I would simply pull over to the curb in a new city I was visiting and zoom into the local map using my laptop. Lack of updates has not been a huge problem, it was only last year for the first time that I encountered a major new freeway in Nevada that was not on my map. I would gladly pay several hundred dollars for a similar product today, and even subscribe if necessary.
macintux 4y ago
> We can smugly look back and laugh at this 'tech'. Is anyone doing so? I’m impressed as hell. A chauffeur who invented voice navigation in 1916? I find nothing to be smug about.
frosted-flakes 4y ago
How are Garmin's GPS products "clunky"? In my experience they work a hell of a lot better than Google Maps. I still use one today that I bought about 2.5 years ago. It's primary purpose is an omnipresent map that I can glance at at any moment. I rarely set a route on it, and I mostly use it as a memory aid for a route I've planned earlier, except on long trips where the ETA and stop-suggestion software is useful.

userbinator 4y ago

with just a few points of interest pertinent to your existence. Pertinent to your existence as a cash-cow to be milked by the corporations, and as a slave to be controlled by the government, no doubt. I vaguely remember one story, and there's probably plenty of other dystopian sci-fi based on this premise.

CraigJPerry 4y ago

>> You had an advantage over everyone else if you had Microsoft's Autoroute Now that’s a blast from the past! I remember being super excited to show my grandpa autoroute in the late 90s. I remember being somewhat deflated as i slowly realised a simple A-Z https://collins.co.uk/pages/a-z https://collins.co.uk/pages/a-z - the ubiquitous handbook in every 90s car (at least in the UK) was still vastly superior. A-Z’s killer feature over its price advantage (you don’t need a PC back when PC ownership was low), it’s ease of use (it’s a small book and it’s always in your drivers door pocket right at hand when you need it), was its ability to re-route on the fly.

PopAlongKid 4y ago

>Microsoft's Autoroute. Not familiar with that one, but MS Streets & Trips, available from mid-aughts until about 2013, was a great product (I still have an installable licensed version that I use). For planning and documenting road trips, it is a great tool, and also can optimize stops to minimize distance, for example I used it once to plan the shortest route for making over 100 stops all within about 10 miles of my starting point. It also can generate turn by turn directions. More than once, before I had a smartphone and online maps, I would simply pull over to the curb in a new city I was visiting and zoom into the local map using my laptop. Lack of updates has not been a huge problem, it was only last year for the first time that I encountered a major new freeway in Nevada that was not on my map. I would gladly pay several hundred dollars for a similar product today, and even subscribe if necessary.

macintux 4y ago

> We can smugly look back and laugh at this 'tech'. Is anyone doing so? I’m impressed as hell. A chauffeur who invented voice navigation in 1916? I find nothing to be smug about.

frosted-flakes 4y ago

How are Garmin's GPS products "clunky"? In my experience they work a hell of a lot better than Google Maps. I still use one today that I bought about 2.5 years ago. It's primary purpose is an omnipresent map that I can glance at at any moment. I rarely set a route on it, and I mostly use it as a memory aid for a route I've planned earlier, except on long trips where the ETA and stop-suggestion software is useful.