Here is a system, designed in Germany, for car route navigation back in 1971.
Car Navigation - 1971
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I know I'm not exactly the best source on this, but I never heard of this becoming mainstream over here. However, I do know this is the type of system they use in racing, such as DAKAR, in the motorbike class, I remember seeing that last year. And if it did, I am interested if anyone here ever used it.
I used a folding paper map.
Really intensive on infrastructure and coding it up. Nowadays the infrastructure is actually more expensive, but from a user perspective it is very simple. Navstar system (aka GPS) was costed at around $24billion last I heard. We piggy-back off that, largely for free nowadays. The user interface is also expensive to code up but companies like Google make their money back in other ways. It is still an expensive system, but the user usually doesn't see much up-front expense.
FYI, here in Melbourne (Australia, not Florida) we had the world's most advanced passenger vehicle tracking system back in around 1986. I ran the maintenance for it. Everything from the PDP11 computers, to the operators screens to the electronics on the trams and buses, radio base stations and the signposts. Basically all major intersections on a route were fitted with short-range radio transmitters (signposts). Their lithium batteries gave them a life of about 10 years before needing replacement. When a bus or tram passed a signpost, it would register the code. When the vehicle was polled (eight vehicles per second per base station site) it would report its last signpost code and distance traveled. "251-207, distance 157m". The computer at our command center would then place it on a map for the operators. Drivers got constant updates of where they were relative to the scheduled service. We still run the system electronics, but the system has switched to GPS for position. Fun fact: the system was sold to us by a company in Texas and we developed it further from there.
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Forgot to mention. I purchased that magazine from the newsagency when I was nine years old 
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I lived in Melbourne Florida in 1979. I heard a story many years ago. A guy was on a airliner. The PA came on and announced that they would be landing in Oaklands shortly. The guy says I thought this plane was going to Oakland in California.
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Wow ... I remember reading that magazine and that specific article when I was young. It was probably more like 1976 or 1977 when I was 14 or 15 that I read it. I was checking out several electronics magazines at a time from our library.Forgot to mention. I purchased that magazine from the newsagency when I was nine years old
It's so cool how posts like that bring back memories. For example, for a while after getting back into rocketry, I recalled that an Alpha was the first rocket I had built. Then I saw a thread here where someone had cloned a Mark II and the photos brought back vivid memories of us building those rockets in the sixth grade. So, I realized it wasn't Alphas, but Mark IIs that we built.
I used a Rand-McNally atlas, bought a new one almost every year. I should say THE WIFE as a passenger tried to use the atlas. I was and am map-oriented and could usually point out the route or relevant towns before she could. While she was holding the map. And I was driving.
Different skill set. My darling SWMBO took us from around $1500 in debt (well...*I* was in debt) when we married to bought-a-new-Toyota-Tercel two years later. Money management skills extreme.
Different skill set. My darling SWMBO took us from around $1500 in debt (well...*I* was in debt) when we married to bought-a-new-Toyota-Tercel two years later. Money management skills extreme.
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