Happy Blue Switch Day!

[+GeoElmo6000]

Just think about how much the world changed 22 years ago!  What do you think have been the biggest changes since selective availability was removed from the GPS signal?

[+MartyBartfast]

31 minutes ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

What do you think have been the biggest changes since selective availability was removed from the GPS signal?

The free availability of personal navigation via mobile phones, we all take it for granted nowadays. 20 years ago I always had a national road map in all my cars, I can't tell you when I last bought a paper map for driving.

Added to the other technological advances in the last 20 years it puts everything at our fingertips, if I'm out somewhere unfamiliar I can look up local hotels or restaurants, book myself a room or table from the middle of  a forest  and my phone will give me a route to get there.

 

I wonder what the next 20 years will bring us?!?!

 

 

 

[+hukilaulau]

when I drove taxi 20+ years ago, standard tools were a map book and a telephone directory. Radio dispatch would give you an address but you didn't dare ask them how to get there!  (Standard response to that was, "Go play the shopping center." You didn't need a radio to do that)

[+cerberus1]

2 hours ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

 What do you think have been the biggest changes since selective availability was removed from the GPS signal?

 

We didn't see/hear of people driving into pools, into pastures, off cliffs, or down city stairs with maps...

[+lee737]

2 hours ago, MartyBartfast said:

20 years ago I always had a national road map in all my cars, I can't tell you when I last bought a paper map for driving.

 

I remember driving through unfamiliar areas at night, having to stop frequently to work out where you were, while your wife would be holding the book upside down! I thought of this while driving through Sydney last week, that would be a nightmare without GPS.....

[+captnemo]

1 hour ago, cerberus1 said:

 

We didn't see/hear of people driving into pools, into pastures, off cliffs, or down city stairs with maps...

Never did any of those but within the last year we were following the GPS to a Wedding when we came to a locked gate about 1 1/2 miles from the place.  Having never been in the area before we would have had to back track a bunch when a UPS driver opened the gate for us so we got to the church on time. Interesting the GPS took us back via another route to the motel.

[+MartyBartfast]

15 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

We didn't see/hear of people driving into pools, into pastures, off cliffs, or down city stairs with maps...

Not quite the same, but when we went on Holiday as kids we would take it in turn to be navigator for my Dad, one holiday my sister managed to take  us into the same farmyard twice,  then my Dad realised she thought the railway tracks on the map were also roads!

 

 

 

[+Jayeffel]

I t sure would have been nice when I drove a tractor trailer cross-country, many times. A trucker's atlas sure was handy. It is surprising how many businesses and warehouses that thrive only because of truckers cannot give directions to the place!

 

One delivery I had to deliver  was in a city in NC or SC I think. I got in the area the night before and stopped at a truck stop. I called the business and asked for directions. I wrote down the directions she gave , a lot of turns. when I finally arrived at the place the next morning I realized the business was a few hundred feet from the highway exit. I asked her about the directions and she said,  "I don't know any other way, that's the way I come to work".

 

I wrote directions to the business on the computer for others to use when needed.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Jayeffel

[+TeamRabbitRun]

20 hours ago, lee737 said:

 

I remember driving through unfamiliar areas at night, having to stop frequently to work out where you were, while your wife would be holding the book upside down! I thought of this while driving through Sydney last week, that would be a nightmare without GPS.....

 

Holding the map upside down while driving in Sydney?

 

Isn't that how it works in the southern hemisphere?

 

[+JL_HSTRE]

On 5/2/2022 at 3:43 PM, cerberus1 said:

We didn't see/hear of people driving into pools, into pastures, off cliffs, or down city stairs with maps...

 

During the day maybe. Still happened at night when people couldn't see where they were going.