Turn-by-turntables: How drivers got from point A to point B in the early 1900s

Turn-by-turntables: How drivers got from point A to point B in the early 1900s(arstechnica.com)

81 points by archimag0 6 years ago | 21 comments

After graduating from Ohio State, I moved out to Newport Beach, California for my first post-college job. The company arranged for help finding an apartment in the area, which includes 1.5 days of apartment-hunting, and generally getting used to the area.

My father & a friend helped me out by driving the bulk of my stuff out to California. The guide was happy to use her AAA of California membership to get a custom trip guide made. It wasn't as novel as the turntable, but it was very nice!

And of course, the first thing I did when I moved in was to go to a bookstore and buy the Thomas Guide covering Orange County.

https://laist.com/2018/06/22/thomas_guide_maps_the_rise_and_...

lordnacho 6 years ago |

Navigating in a car was a problem even when I started driving in the early 2000s, before GPS.

- If you just had a map book you'd have to study it before a journey to get the likely placenames you'd see. This is surprisingly hard.

- You'd probably forget to check one-way systems.

- You could sort of guess where there'd be traffic, but for any major diversions you had to be very careful to follow the ad-hoc signs. Plus there's a high chance that you would decide you'd lost the way if the gap between signs was too long.

- You really needed to know the major geographic placenames by heart. Even if you're not going to Manchester, you will need to know whether on your trip to Birmingham to follow the road to Manchester. Now picture driving in a foreign country.

- Forget about estimating the time to get there. If it's a place you don't know your route will not be ideal.

- Conveniences like the next petrol station off the road, forget it.

dole 6 years ago | |

In the late-80's to mid-90's, DeLorme Street Atlas USA was one of the best consumer street map solutions. I remember using the DOS version (3.5" floppies, IIRC) on an amber gas plasma Toshiba T3200SX [1] "laptop" or some similar model with the advantage of being able to print out turn-by-turn directions pre-trip but without a GPS module which came later in the early-mid 90's. Surprisingly, I can't find any images of the old monochrome versions on a quick search but you can imagine the jump to the full color CD-ROM Windows 3.1 versions just a few years later. Mapquest took over in the late 90's.

I mention all this just because OP's article mentions the mid-80's Etak system [2] (Nolan Bushnell!) which I'd never heard about and had to look up... and it looked almost like having a Vectrex in your car that ran maps off a standard cassette tape. Pretty wild.

[1] https://www.instructables.com/id/Toshiba-T3200SX-Portable-De...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHCCjlSWbHE&t=2m

leokennis 6 years ago | |

It's scary how lost I feel anywhere when I don't have my phone on me (in the sense of: how will I get where I need to go) even when I'm in a place where I speak the language and can read the signs.

It's scarier how this dependency did not exist at all before I got my first smartphone in 2009.

BubRoss 6 years ago | | |

Before GPS was printing off maps from google and before that were map books that you buy at gas stations. Navigating through a big city to somewhere tricky by yourself was no joke. It was a lot of memorization ahead of time and intense concentration to make sure you didn't miss key turns. We didn't just forget how to do something, it was never easy and I don't miss those days at all. I don't remember exactly how to do long division either but I do a lot more simple calculations now to figure things out than I did before. Saving mental energy is very real.

matt-attack 6 years ago | | |

Makes me think we need to have a national leave your phone at home day.

Symbiote 6 years ago | |

> the likely placenames you'd see

In the UK, you can use the "primary destinations"[1], which are the significant places given on the green signs. The purpose is to know (for sure!) that you can follow "Manchester" north from London until you see e.g. "Bolton".

They were highlighted somehow in road atlases. I started driving in London and after GPS, so I don't have experience actually using the system.

> Now picture driving in a foreign country.

This is a reason behind the E-road network [2], at least for long journeys across countries, but naturally Britain doesn't bother with it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_primary_destinations_o...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_E-road_network

gorgoiler 6 years ago |

The map being physically connected to the odometer, albeit by a long cable, seems like a good idea but this feels like an early example of how hardware engineering and software engineering (in this case, UX) are quite separate skill sets!

It’s a cute idea but an unnecessary (and literal) coupling of the measurement function with the route information.

There’s a reason that numerical odometers with dual absolute / trip delta readings caught on — far more flexible.

rikkipitt 6 years ago |

This reminded me of something similar: https://gajitz.com/scrolling-down-the-highway-vintage-1927-a...

It's a watch-like, wrist device called the "Plus Four Wristlet Route Indicator", and it dates back to 1927.

cosmodisk 6 years ago | |

When I was a little kid I wanted a computer so bad that I was even thinking to build a box with some sort of changing "screen" that'd be a roll of paper with some images attached to it. Turns out I wasn't that crazy.

atorodius 6 years ago | | |

Ha, I did the same. Built little casings in LEGOs. Good times

HeavenFox 6 years ago |

Kari from Mythbusters built a replica of this, and another version that uses scrolls, on the netflix show White Rabbit Project (S01E09). It actually worked better than I thought it would.

swiley 6 years ago |

I’ve always thought it would be cool to have a printed out minimum spanning tree starting from my house (or work) with miles marked out on it. You wouldn’t need OSM or google maps then!

tow21 6 years ago | |

Something like this:

https://www.wanhala.net/post/156592370293/all-roads-lead-to-...

cosmodisk 6 years ago |

Not completely related ro tnis article, however there are some good arguments thst road infrastructure played key role in human development. Imagine trying to get from somewhere in Poland to England through forests, swamps and fields... Trade and knowledge sharing went through the roof once people started building roads and connecting towns and cities.

Balanceinfinity 6 years ago |

Have to give some love to TripTiks, from AAA - the precursor to printed directions from the computer:

https://magazine.northeast.aaa.com/daily/travel/road-trips/p...

dharmab 6 years ago |

A modern form of this is the Dakar roadbook for the Dakar off-road rally: https://www.dakar.com/en/espace-ccr/navigation/roadbook

thegreatco 6 years ago |

That's pretty ingenious.

maweki 6 years ago |

This page somehow crashes my Firefox.

newqer 6 years ago | |

Works fine on my Lynx