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Meet the World's First Self-Driving Car From 1968

Qbertino writes: The German Web industry magazine T3N (think of it as the German TechCrunch) has an article about a test circuit and a test vehicle -- a modified Mercedes Benz limousine of the time -- that was set up by the German tire manufacturer Continental in order to test tires in a precisely reproducible set of tests. Hence the self-driving mechanism provided by a wire in the test track to send and receive signals from the car and to record data on the test runs on magnetic tape and other high-tech stuff from the time. Here's a short video, erm, film clip showing the setup in action -- driverless seat included. Today's artificial intelligence is nowhere to be seen of course, but the entire setup itself seems pretty impressive and sophisticated.

58 comments

  1. How is this news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The video was posted nearly two years ago.

    1. Re:How is this news? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Even so, isn't the subject of the article five decades late? That's gotta be a new record even for Slashdot.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    2. Re:How is this news? by novakyu · · Score: 1

      But it was submitted only recently. That makes it news. For Slashdot editors. Anyway.

  2. Re:Bret Kavanaugh is a RAPIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We will also ram a baseball bat up your ass if you continue posting your stupid opinion.

    No lube. Lots of blood ( yours ).

    Understand, FAGGOT ?

  3. Re:Bret Kavanaugh is a RAPIST by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 0

    I don't think calling him "a bundle of sticks or twigs bound together as fuel" is going to help.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  4. Re:Bret Kavanaugh is a RAPIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nah, an attempted rapist at worst. Bill Clinton, now THERE'S a rapist!

  5. 8==T=R=E=A=S=O=N==C=U=C=K==D -~-_. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You talk a big game, but I'll bet the blood on your baseball bat came from your rectum, asshole.

    I'm here to defend my country against the traitor-rapists who collude with Russia to undermine our values, and your gay ass whining isn't going to stop me.

    Maybe if you spent less time cupping Trump's balls while his supreme court nominee rapes your daughter you wouldn't be such a fucking treason-cuck.

    1. Re:8==T=R=E=A=S=O=N==C=U=C=K==D -~-_. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Post your name and address if you're so tough.

      Otherwise, you're just another shit-talking pussy.

    2. Re:8==T=R=E=A=S=O=N==C=U=C=K==D -~-_. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that republicans are such prodigious rapists that they would have to drown dozens of women.

      Didn't stop Kennedy (you thought there was just the one?). Or Clinton (either one).

      Hell, Clinton2 ran a train on a whole COUNTRY and then left them to metaphorically drown.

      Now THAT is a master.

    3. Re:8==T=R=E=A=S=O=N==C=U=C=K==D -~-_. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that you are calling people who have consensual sex rapists while defending republican rapists and child molesters.

      Much like you defend Russia's agent orange rapist-traitor while you claim that you don't want anyone running a train on America.

      Moscow Donald is helping Russia run a train on America, you fucking treason-cuck!

    4. Re:8==T=R=E=A=S=O=N==C=U=C=K==D -~-_. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that you are calling people who have consensual sex rapists

      I guess we are calling underage girls from poor countries who are tossed out of planes after sex "consensual", wink wink!!! And after all they "consetually" got in the car before it went in the river! That's great, thanks for the reminders of the mastery at which the Democrat elite wordsmith rape culture and generally buggery.

      I hear they had a glass bottom on the plane so Clinton1 and Clinton2 could watch them fall... the only time Clinton2 ever really smiled I hear.

    5. Re:8==T=R=E=A=S=O=N==C=U=C=K==D -~-_. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I heard that when Republicans gang rape and engage in pedophilia you distract from their crimes with obviously false conspiracy theories.

      You must embody the same moral deficiencies as republican rapists and traitors to lick their balls while they rape little girls.

  6. 8==T=R=E=A=S=O=N==C=U=C=K==D -~-_. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You talk a big game, but I'll bet the blood on your baseball bat came from your own rectum, asshole.

    I'm here to defend my country against the traitor-rapists who collude with Russia to undermine our values, and your gay ass whining isn't going to stop me.

    Maybe if you spent less time cupping Trump's balls while his supreme court nominee rapes your daughter you wouldn't be such a fucking treason-cuck.

  7. Re:Well that solves RTFM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Also, meet the first real contender and winner of the first Darwin awards from 1969:

    https://www.youtube.com/cdreim...

    Note: The YouTube algorithm likes external links.
    --
    Star Wars Holiday Santa Yoda (Funko POP! #277) Found At Box Lunch

  8. I know, right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Everyone knows you leave them in a car in a river after so they can't testify against you later. Republicans are so stupid!

  9. 8==T=R=E=A=S=O=N==C=U=C=K==D -~-_. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Except that republicans are such prodigious rapists that they would have to drown dozens of women.

    And that's not even counting the gang rapes that republican treason-cucks participate in or implicitly support.

    You republican rapist shit-stains even voted overwhelmingly for a child molester for Alabama's Senate seat. No surprise that thanks to the retarded, rapey, gene pool in Alabama that's where the child rape is the strongest and mos widely supported.

  10. Re:Well that solves RTFM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here is what is much worse than laziness alone; some people are lazy and stupid

    For example, take creimer and his stupid and dead youtube channel that was supposed to be his long tail revenue stream for his retirement.

    He has been told several times that he should finish his certifications instead but he is too lazy to do that and he finds it easier to post stupid stuff on YouTube.

    Since nobody watches his stupid stuff. He decided to publish a border line kid video that he filmed himself. Then he posted in various forums, faking outrage to bring views to his channel arguing with himself with different sock puppets names.

    Here is basically what it looked like:
    creimer wrote:
    https://slashdot.org/comments....

    Have you seen creimer's children band video [youtu.be]? Holy shit! That video got hundreds of view [twitter.com] with 95% coming from outside of the United States and the top three nations are well known for sex tourism. It doesn't surprise me that Slashdot has so many pedobears.

    and:
    https://slashdot.org/comments....

    No. Thanks to YOU for calling me a pedophile. It has become my best performing video in the first 24 hours to date. All those views came from OUTSIDE the United States. Ukraine being 11% of the total.

    and:
    https://slashdot.org/comments....

    Thanks to your Pedobear buddies, I got 25 hours of watch time in three days and coming in second to my Slashdot video with 30 hours of watch time in six months. Keep up the good work!

    So basically creimer, you are bragging about providing video material to pedophiles and sex tourists and you do not see any problems with it as long as it brings views to your youtube channel.

    Poor Chris, sad, very sad...

    How long will it be before you do the right thing and take that video off line?

    update: see creimer's replies here:
    https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...

    https://news.slashdot.org/comm...

    https://slashdot.org/comments....

    https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...

  11. Re:Well that solves RTFM by jtgd · · Score: 2

    I find it hard to claim the car was "self driving" when it was directed by a wire in the test track.

    It drove itself without a human. The wire in the rack was the technology used, instead of cameras and computers.

    --
    J
  12. Re:Bret Kavanaugh is a RAPIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Running a train on a drugged girl?

    What the fuck is wrong with Republicans???

    They are the least moral people while claiming to be the most moral.

  13. Re:Bret Kavanaugh is a RAPIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Running a train on a drugged girl?

    What the fuck is wrong with Republicans???

    They are the least moral people while claiming to be the most moral.

    .

    But we have most of the guns, and when the time comes, we will remove scum like you from the gene pool, with gusto.

  14. 8==T=R=E=A=S=O=N==C=U=C=K==D -~-_. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, you will do anything for Moscow Donald and mother Russia, eh comrade treason-cuck.

    Too bad your gene pool is weak from cousin-fucking and child rape. You will accidentally shoot your kids and yourself while masturbating your gun long before you get near a patriotic American like me.

  15. Fictional by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Herbie the Love Bug was a fictional character.

  16. Bring it! 8==T=R=E=A=S=O=N==C=U=C=K==D -~-_. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I already got a blood stained condom I got fucking your underage menstruating daughter, and I posted that on the door to her high school.

    Oh wait, I'm not a republican rapist like your hero Moscow Donald, so I only have consensual sex with adult females.

    So if you want to find me, you'll have to take your dick out of your sister and go to 666 Fifth Avenue, NY NY.

    25th floor, between Silent Jared's treason-office and the room where Moscow Donald vaginally penetrates his daughter with his tiny fingers and limp, Toad from Mario Kart shaped penis.

  17. Re: Bret Kavanaugh is a RAPIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ALL date rape is fake rape.

  18. Did the human not control the wire by SuperKendall · · Score: 0

    Following a wire is not "driving itself", it's basically following commands input externally by humans.

    If I stand outside the car and use a string to turn the steering wheel, is it "driving itself"?

    In case you were seriously wondering the answer is NO.

    Also I have bad news for you, those puppets you really loved at that one show are not in fact sentient cloth creatures.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Did the human not control the wire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course it's driving itself. There is no human driver. You know there is really no difference between the way this works and modern lane-keeping systems right? It's not like your Tesla has theory of mind and a complex inner life.

    2. Re:Did the human not control the wire by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      SuperKendall is a consumer of shiny things, not a producer. Everything to him is magic and "AI".

    3. Re: Did the human not control the wire by Crackez · · Score: 1

      At what point does a mechanism qualify as self driving?

      A computer is just a more complex contraption.

    4. Re: Did the human not control the wire by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      At what point does a mechanism qualify as self driving?

      When it is making choices based on real-world conditions without a specialized car-specific input.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    5. Re:Did the human not control the wire by jtgd · · Score: 1

      Your example is not the same. The wire in the track is not sending intelligent commands from a human. Even if the wire is simply a magnetic "marker", having a tracking device on the bottom of the car and a servo to steer is still self-driving.

      --
      J
  19. 2nd car did highway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There was another car which drove on the german highway, speeds up to 110mph and for about 1200miles. No wires, no external help.
    Used analog video camera and the system was very basic, but it all started decades ago

  20. Glad to see the AI also got the wipers by Mr.+Dollar+Ton · · Score: 2

    instead of the blinkers. I can sleep better now.

  21. I have an AI that can write Shakespeare by aberglas · · Score: 1

    The program is really simple. Here it is:-

    $ cat Hamlet.txt

    A lot of claimed AI is not much more than that, Eliza being the classic example. That is the problem with AI, very hard to define.

    1. Re:I have an AI that can write Shakespeare by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      All AI is are algorithms that we don't fully understand yet. The definition of AI keeps changing over time as we understand better how to do certain activities that we once assumed were extremely difficult or impractical to do with a computer.

  22. Re:Well that solves RTFM by phayes · · Score: 1

    You and the author of TFA weaken "self-driving" to the point where it is meaningless.

    Using two steel or wooden tracks to guide a self propelled engine is just as applicable so it was James Watt in the late 1700s.

    --
    Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
  23. Re: Bret Kavanaugh is a RAPIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Asia Argento raped me. She forced her anus on my peepee. :'(

  24. Reacting to input vs being pushed. by DrYak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Using two steel or wooden tracks to guide a self propelled engine is just as applicable so it was James Watt in the late 1700s.

    Using rails to guide a vehicle is just using a physical device to push the engine and keep it on track. The self propelled engine is only moving forward and doing nothing more.

    In both modern and this old "self-driving" cars, the cars isn't only moving forward, there's also electronics that does some steering in order to keep following a given path. The subtle difference is in the sensor technology used.

    The old car, uses a special purpose guide (a wire) that is easy for the onboard system to detect, and determine how to steer in order to stay on track.

    Nowadays, thanks to Moore's law and other miniaturization tech, cars like Tesla, Mercedes, Volvo, etc. use the same visual guide that was laid out for humans (painted lanes marking on the ground) to detect and determine how to streer in order to stay in the lane.

    The later has the advantage on using the exact same guide that is already laid out everywhere.

    The former sadly has to rely on a custom solution, so it can't scale beyond a test track, and would never be useful to introduce self-driving in a city. But it is already useful : recording what parameters (steering/speed) was necessary to stay on track gives you an exact idea of what you're designing your tires for (having good grip and how it impacts the driving).

    It's a distant cousin of the "small electronic cars that follows where you point your light at" gadget that was popular when we were kids. Again, extremely crude sensors (because that's the max you can pack inside your gadget back in the 80s), that give a target for the gadget to track and follow. But it's the device that (autonomously) steers toward the target.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:Reacting to input vs being pushed. by phayes · · Score: 1

      While everything you say is true, it's all just semantics being used to favour one self driving tech over another with little to no real justification to use one over another other than personal preference once you dumb down "self driving" from it's generally accepted definition of "equivalent to human level driving on roads not modified to assist the car" to "needs special roads".

      How does the German system wire deal with merging and dividing lanes? How about traffic? Inclement weather? When the answer is not well to not at all, thats also how most people will judge the merit/absence of merit of the attempt to label the system as "self driving".

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
  25. " seems pretty impressive and sophisticated." by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Note to all millenials - we sent men to the moon only a year after this so yes, things could be quite sophisticated back then. Also London had self driving automatic trains on the Underground in 1967.

    The technological revolution didn't start with the iPhone or Facebook. HTH.

    1. Re:" seems pretty impressive and sophisticated." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also a driverless car is AI by definition. It looks like intelligence, but it's artificial.

      Love,

      Old-timers

    2. Re:" seems pretty impressive and sophisticated." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, a driverless car is one that does not need a driver. This could be done by AI, or by some other control mechanism where a person is not driving.

      Since most /. readers don't understand german (and since most of the time won't even RTFA let along translate TFA), here is a trasnlation of the important bit:

      The car followed a guidewire on the road, sensors informed the car in the car about whether it was on the track, then the car steered automatically. From the control room at the edge of the test track, commands were sent to the car via the guidewire: slowing down, accelerating - and honking.

      I'll call this a self-steering car. because a human accelerated and decelerated. NOT driverless.

      If it had acclerated and decelerated on its own, AI or not, it would truly have been a driverless car.

    3. Re:" seems pretty impressive and sophisticated." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also a driverless car is AI by definition.

      Pfffff. Driverless means "without a driver". For all the English language speaking crowd care a car parked at the mall lot with no driving position occupants would qualify for "driverless".

      Love,

      Word definition nazi

    4. Re:" seems pretty impressive and sophisticated." by kyjo · · Score: 0

      Intelligence is an ability to achieve a goal / solve a problem -- in this case steering a car. Intelligence IS the control mechanism.

    5. Re:" seems pretty impressive and sophisticated." by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      The definitions of AI have changed for as long as I can remember.
      "That's not really AI decision making, that's just an expert system."
      "That's not really AI image recognition, that's just image processing algorithms."
      "That's not really AI translation, it's just Google being very fast at searching and stitching."

  26. Bah by sunking2 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Germany had self driving V2s in 1944.

  27. That's not a self-driving car by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 1

    That's essentially a life-size Scalextrix. The "intelligence" is entirely contained in the track embedded in the road deck.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  28. Re: Bret Kavanaugh is a RAPIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Impotent death threats!
    How Cute.

  29. RCA did it a decade earlier by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Outside Lincoln, Nebraska in 1957 says IEEE:

    https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/heroic-failures/selfdriving-cars-were-just-around-the-cornerin-1960

  30. That is not the same by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    You know there is really no difference between the way this works and modern lane-keeping systems right?

    That is not self driving either.

    But lets pretend it is - there is a vast difference, because in the case of the lines it's using input meant for humans to control where the car steers, as opposed to using a specific car-road integration that dumbly follows a wire. The difference is intelligence and scope.

    P.S. I do not have a Tesla. But I have dabbled in writing software for self driving cars so I pretty obviously know more about how this all works than you do.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  31. Self Driving cars have been coming soon for decade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I remember as a kid reading a book published around 1962 that self driving cars would be common by the mid 70's using guides in the road to follow and keep them in their lanes. I was reading it in the early 80's so that was rather amusing, as the technology had been long abandoned.

  32. Count Zero by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder if this is where William Gibson got the idea for the self-driving Mercedes Benz limo in his novel "Count Zero"?

  33. Re: Bret Kavanaugh is a RAPIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    #metoo. She forced me to come all over her face. :'(

  34. Re:Well that solves RTFM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This site is full of Nazis, yourself included. Don't be surprised. This is what you asked for.

  35. Not the First by John_Sauter · · Score: 1

    This car was preceded by the General Motors Firebird series, in the 1950s. See . It included the ability to follow a cable embedded in the road: .

  36. Re:Bret Kavanaugh is a RAPIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We will also ram a baseball bat up your ass if you continue posting your stupid opinion.

    No lube. Lots of blood ( yours ).

    Understand, FAGGOT ?

    Give a big round of applause for Brett Kavanaugh, who came here for an Q&A!

    First question: Have you stopped raping women (and give your introductory statement) also men?