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How Etak Built a Car Navigation System In 1985

Posted by timothy on from the this-way-to-the-time-machine dept.

harrymcc writes: Thirty years ago, a startup called Etak released the Navigator, an in-car navigation system. It provided turn-by-turn driving directions despite the fact that GPS did not exist, and stored its maps--which Etak had to create itself--on cassette tapes. And some of its data and technologies are still in use in today's navigation apps. Over at Fast Company, Benj Edwards tells this amazing story. I remember reading about (and lusting over) this system back then, in the much-missed DAK catalog.

7 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. 14 Ingenious Fasteners you didn't know you needed by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 4, Funny

    Looking at the cover of that Popular Science magazine, I see that they too were far ahead of their time, inventing clickbait before there even was such a thing as a "click" (on the web, at least).

    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  2. Lots of people did by thogard · · Score: 2

    I was in a car about 5 years later that could keep in its lane along the US highway along the Appalachian Mountain Highway for nearly 100 miles to Washington DC. That car just happened to have a $300,000+ laser ring gyro and more electronics than the car cost but it did manage to keep the car in the lane all the way.

  3. Etak, then the yellow line! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The folks who did the Etak stuff ended up doing the First Down line, amongst other things.
    I had the pleasure of working with them. First rate people!

  4. Bowditch Navigation Systems by mbone · · Score: 2

    Bowditch Navigation Systems had a similar video navigation system, but for ships at sea. It included an integrated navigation system (LORAN, OMEGA and dead reckoning), and displayed the user's location by projecting microfiche cards of the usual navigation charts. Unlike the car system, this was a practical product with a number of customers. GPS integration was planned but never implemented; the company was caught up in a lawsuit against one of its main investors and collapsed in the 1986 time frame due to a lack of cash.

  5. Back in my day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    we used our Plus Four Wristlet Route Indicator: http://gizmodo.com/388005/wristlet-route-indicator-1927s-answer-to-gps and liked it that way.

  6. Re:ETAk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    And I'm old enough to know that's "dead reckoning".

  7. Re:ETAk by enigma32 · · Score: 2

    "Dead recognition" -- That's like that TV show with the nice man that talks to dead people, right?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...