Etak Navigator

From: Erik S. Klein <classiccmp_at_vintage-computer.com>
Date: Mon Oct 7 19:30:01 2002

I was working for a subsidiary of Magnavox in the early 1980s and we
were producing and selling what we called the "AVLS" or Advanced Vehicle
Locating System. Ours was also a dead reckoning system with a Magnavox
SatNav/Loran C box keeping our locations as accurate as possible. This
was the same system Magnavox sold for marine applications and it was
amazingly accurate for the pre-GPS days.

We would pester the USGS for their best maps and manually digitize them
using AutoCad. The data was then loaded onto hellishly expensive
Gridcase 8086 based machines (the old magnesium ones with the red plasma
displays.) We could plot a moving vehicles position to within a few
yards if we were correctly calibrated. Our accuracy was better just
after a Sat fix and worst just before one, of course. The vehicle data
was also passed back to a base station for display there (via packet
radio or something like it - I wasn't too close to that part of the
system.)

Rather then create broad area maps and expect to sell this system to
individuals we specifically marketed to agencies that could use the
information to track their vehicles. A couple of Canadian cities loved
the idea and bought it to improve their EMS service, tracking ambulance
and paramedic locations real-time and dispatching based on actual
response times rather then their theoretical response times from base
positions.

We also sold an installation to a police force in CT that I'll not
mention. Those units "mysteriously" became very unreliable. Many of
the antennas were gummed up daily (really - they'd stuff chewing gum
wrappers in the antenna base to fubar the reception) and several of the
units themselves fell apart (with the assistance of the butt end of a
shotgun or two). Eventually the local Police union killed the deal,
even after we put a "panic button" on the police radios that would alert
the dispatcher with an exact lat/long for the officer's vehicle when it
was pressed.

We beat Etak to market by several years although we were in a vastly
different market.

   Erik S. Klein
   www.vintage-computer.com


-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-admin_at_classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin_at_classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Patrick Rigney
Sent: Monday, October 07, 2002 12:38 PM
To: cctalk_at_classiccmp.org
Subject: RE: Etak Navigator

Joe,

Back in the mid-80's, Etak began shipping what I believe is the first
commercially available in-vehicle navigation system. This system was
the
precursor to today's driver-guidance systems, and Etak's patents are
probably in most if not all of them. The original Etak Navigator was a
specially-packaged 286 system with 256MB RAM and 256MB ROM, and a
four-track
tape drive on which some of the "OS" and the digital maps were stored.
The
tapes didn't hold much, so for the San Francisco area, for example, you
had
four or five tapes--when you drove off the end of the map, you changed
tapes
to match your new location. The map moved as you drove, just like
today's
systems, but instead of the fancy color raster display, it had a green
vector display. It had address geocoding (the ability to convert a
street
address to a lat/long point). It worked by using a compass mounted
somewhere in the car (typically inside the headliner) and two wheel
sensors
on the rear wheels (which magnetic strips installed on the wheel rims
themselves). The system worked by "dead reckoning" (actually "ded.
reckoning" for "deduced"), which basically meant that you told it where
you
were when you first installed it, and then took it on a short
calibration
drive, and from then on, the system self-corrected and got increasingly
better at following the map. No GPS at that time... that came much
later,
and obviously improved the accuracy and simplicity of the system.

For those of you in the San Francisco area during the 70's and 80's, you
could buy these at various auto-stereo places for around $3000-$3500
installed (does anyone remember Steven Matthew David, owner of Matthews
TV
and Stereo, top of the hill, Daly City! :-)) It was also used in
emergency
vehicles: coupled with a data radio, a central dispatch could watch a
moving
display of paramedic and fire vehicles driving around.

Patrick

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk-admin_at_classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-admin_at_classiccmp.org]On
> Behalf Of Joe
> Sent: Monday, October 07, 2002 2:52 PM
> To: cctalk_at_classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Etak Navigator
>
>
> What the heck is an Etak Navigator and why does it have a tape
drive?
>
> Joe
>
> At 11:39 AM 10/7/02 -0700, you wrote:
> >I have an Etak Navigator, serial number 67, that was at one time
> installed
> >in my car, but many years ago was removed and relegated to a box
> in storage.
> >I pulled it out a few months ago, but I have no idea where the tape
drive
> >is. I've moved many times since I worked there. I've contacted
> Etak (now
> >Tele Atlas), but so far my inquiries have fallen on deaf ears.
> Does anyone
> >out there happen to have a tape drive, or the whole system, that
> they'd be
> >willing to sell/trade/etc? TIA, Patrick
> >
> >
>
>
>
Received on Mon Oct 07 2002 - 19:30:01 BST