
Turn-by-turntables: How drivers got from point A to point B in the early 1900s - archimag0
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/01/turn-by-turntables-how-drivers-got-from-point-a-to-point-b-in-the-early-1900s/
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CaliforniaKarl
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_...](https://laist.com/2018/06/22/thomas_guide_maps_the_rise_and_fall.php)

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lordnacho
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.

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leokennis
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.

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

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stevewodil
So you mean a day where we all just stay home?

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gorgoiler
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.

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rikkipitt
This reminded me of something similar: [https://gajitz.com/scrolling-down-the-
highway-vintage-1927-a...](https://gajitz.com/scrolling-down-the-highway-
vintage-1927-analog-gps/)

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

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cosmodisk
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.

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

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HeavenFox
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.

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swiley
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!

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tow21
Something like this:

[https://www.wanhala.net/post/156592370293/all-roads-lead-
to-...](https://www.wanhala.net/post/156592370293/all-roads-lead-to-my-home)

?

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cosmodisk
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.

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Balanceinfinity
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...](https://magazine.northeast.aaa.com/daily/travel/road-trips/paper-
maps-triptiks-still/)

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

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thegreatco
That's pretty ingenious.

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maweki
This page somehow crashes my Firefox.

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newqer
Works fine on my Lynx

