My dad's old GPS unit and the time he told me to just look at the road

I was helping him clean out his garage in Toledo about five years ago and found his old TomTom One from 2006. He plugged it in, and it took a full three minutes just to find the satellites. I made a joke about how slow it was, and he just said, 'At least it never told me to drive into a lake.' He was talking about the early days of bad map data. It made me think about how much we trust these things now compared to when they felt like a sketchy helper. Anyone else have an old gadget that worked in a totally different way?

4 comments

4 Comments

jamie_webb672mo ago

My old Garmin once tried to send me down a one way street the wrong way.

wade2505d ago

Garmin's actually been around since '89, not long after TomTom. But yeah, those old ones were wild. My buddy had a Garmin Nuvi that tried to route him through a construction site once, just a pile of dirt and cones. The screen was showing a clear road straight through it. You really had to treat those things like a crazy co-pilot, not a trusted guide. They'd get you close enough, but the last mile was all on you and common sense.

blair_nguyen2mo ago

That TomTom story is perfect. My mom had a Garmin that would confidently tell her to turn left off a bridge. You had to know your own route and just use it for the time estimate.

hayden_craig952mo ago

Yeah but that's exactly why I still use mine... it's like having a second opinion. Sometimes it spots a shortcut I'd never see, like cutting through a weird parking lot to avoid a left turn. Sure you gotta ignore the crazy stuff, but having that voice in the car just makes me feel less alone on long drives.