🚗 TIL: Before GPS was fully operational, Honda built a car navigation system that used zero satellites.

In 1981, the Honda Electro Gyrocator debuted as a dealer option on the Accord. You placed a transparent plastic map over a small CRT screen and marked your starting point.

As you drove, a helium gas-rate gyroscope detected turns: helium flow shifted between two heated wires, creating a temperature difference the computer read as direction. A transmission sensor tracked distance. A 16-bit computer combined both to move a dot across the map showing your position.

Not perfect. Wheel spin and drift compounded, so you could pull over and manually realign. The IEEE designated it a Milestone in 2017 as the world's first map-based car navigation system, 14 years before GPS.

The catch: it cost about $2,746 (nearly a quarter of the car's price). It only lasted one year.

Read more:
spectrum.ieee.org/first-mapbas…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro_…
global.honda/en/heritage/episo…

#TIL #Honda #engineering #history

First Map-Based Car Navigation System Debuted 14 Years Before GPS

Released in 1981, Honda’s Electro Gyrocator is now an IEEE Milestone

^{Ivan Berger (IEEE Spectrum)}