Скачать или смотреть Etak Navigator Tour & Demo

(This is raw footage shot in December of 1991 to share the system with friends we were visiting across the country during the holidays. Apologies for the casual presentation and lack of editing.)

Before the Global Positioning System (GPS) was available to the general public, Etak, Inc. introduced what became the first viable automobile navigation systems in 1985: the Etak Navigator.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etak#Et...

The $3,495 system used "augmented dead reckoning" to navigate, using sensors on two of the vehicle's road wheels to measure distance and turning rates in conjunction with a solid-state compass and while constantly comparing the predicted position with data from tape-based maps.

I found this used system for sale in Los Angeles in 1991, and with tinkering and some long-distance assistance from Etak, Inc., installed it in one of our vehicles. This system uses Philips-cassette data tapes - unlike the audio tape players using the same tape and shell, there is no capstan drive, and the tapes are spindle-driven at much higher speeds.

Only a few thousand Navigators were ever produced. A number of them were used in Los Angeles Fire Department vehicles - this may have been one of those systems.

The product was not particularly consumer-friendly. In particular, small differences in tire pressures from side-to-side on the sensor-equipped wheels cause the system to fail to track the map data correctly - most consumers are not so attentive to monitoring vehicle service details so closely.

Neither the Navigator nor the TravelPilot performed "routing" functions - giving instructions to the driver about where to go. What they did do is provide a relative direction indicator (an arrow) to your chosen destination, and displayed the remaining distance. At various zoom ranges, the maps showed first primary highways, then large secondary roads and finally all roads at maximum zoom. So locating a destination was relatively straightforward. During the first several years I owned this device, I worked in the motion picture industry in Los Angeles, and every working day might be in a new location. When parking my car every night at home, I'd type in the next morning's location address, and in the morning, simply follow the arrow to work. It was a life-changing and rare experience, and gives me both great appreciation for the improvements made and little patience for the shortcoming which still exist in personal navigation products.

We eventually acquired a Blaupunkt TravelPilot, which used CDs to provide map data, but still utilized the wheel sensors and compass, as well as the same green phosphor vector-graphic CRTs (we own this large 7" CRT and a smaller 5" which was installed in a different vehicle). That TravelPilot and this 7" display are still operational to this day in that same 1986 Shelby GLHS.

Over the years, we have owned many, many navigation systems, and today's live Internet-connected services provide the best navigational experiences. But I'm proud to have spent many useful years with one of the first.