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?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamie_webb673d ago

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

blair_nguyen3d 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_craig953d 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.