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RetroGPS

  • May. 7th, 2008 at 5:01 PM
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A 1927 navigation device. Scroll the map through the viewer to guide you on any of 20 or so pre-set routes.

Yes, I know, it's a link to the Daily Mail. And from a Guardianista like me, too. Sorry...

Comments

[info]akicif wrote:
May. 7th, 2008 04:59 pm (UTC)
I think there's a Neville Shute story where he mentions pilots having rolled up strip maps covering about 10-20 miles either side of a route they were flying (I didn't read this myself, it got mentioned by a teacher when we were looking at either the Jaguar or Tornado navigation system (which uses 35mm film strips) at cadet camp one year.

Closer to the ground, there were also the "Contour Road Book of $Country" books - a gazetteer of cross-country routes shown in side-on elevation. These may have been produced initially for the under-powered cars of the 1920s, but even in the 1980s they were excellent for cyclists - the side view of Carter Bar, in particular, was quite exhilarating.
[info]ajshepherd wrote:
May. 7th, 2008 05:56 pm (UTC)
In the aviation book A Sunday Flyer by Maurice Brett, he mentions making a map roll to fit in a Tiger Moth cockpit for a long cross-country navigation.
[info]sharikkamur wrote:
May. 7th, 2008 08:16 pm (UTC)
That's a marvellous little thing.

Even in the relatively recent past (1980s) you used to be able to phone the AA, tell them your start and end points and any intermediate stops and they would send you a long thin map in the same basic format - the size and shape of a folded OS map. We ordered one the first time my Mum drove me back to university from Liverpool to St. Andrews.