this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2024
119 points (99.2% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27231 readers
2541 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

When I was a kid my family owned a device whose sole purpose was to rewind vhs tapes.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

A direction and coordinates most likely. You can use the paper map for the rest. It makes sense in some scenarios, mostly doesn't anymore.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Most of the ones I've seen actually had a map but the problem is that since it has no internet connection it can't update when changes happen in real life.

Therefore you have to go and find new and updated maps for it and a lot of them cannot be updated either due to new maps not being released for them anymore or the manufacturers expectation that there aren't enough of those devices in service anymore for a map release to make sense.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Oh I just looked it up and I was way behind on the technology leap those devices did! I was thinking of LCD 3 row displays. Nice to see those are available now!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Those were popular for geocaching before smartphones became ubiquitous and you could just use a geocaching app.

With a regular GPS that has a map you could usually not navigate to a precise off-road location, even if the GPS allowed you to enter the exact coordinates it would just navigate you to the nearest street on the map.

With these simple GPS devices you would just get a compass pointing to your goal and it would allow you to reach the precise coordinates you entered