<story><title>Who Needs GPS? The Story of Etak&apos;s 1985 Car Navigation System</title><url>https://www.fastcompany.com/3047828/who-needs-gps-the-forgotten-story-of-etaks-amazing-1985-car-navigation-system</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mmastrac</author><text>&amp;gt; about 20% of the population could not cope with a map that wasn&amp;#x27;t aligned with the direction they were going&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s me. I have a tough time orienting maps in my head. I still use a mnemonic for compass directions and (occasionally) use my left hand as an L to make sure I&amp;#x27;m not screwing it up.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know if there is any research into what the structural differences of brains that suffer from this might be, let alone if there is a name for it.</text></item><item><author>Animats</author><text>I saw Etak back in its early days, and Stan Honey gave me a demo. I still have one of their rate gyro&amp;#x2F;2D level units, and a compass unit. There&amp;#x27;s a motor driving a spinning disk, which warps slightly when the unit is turned, and sensors to detect the warp. The level, for sensing which way is down, is a sealed cup of liquid with the liquid height sensed with four capacitor plates outside the cup.  The liquid was proprietary, chosen to not slosh under automotive movement.  The whole thing is the size of a soda can. The compass is a 2-axis magnetometer, about 2 inches square.  It wasn&amp;#x27;t mounted on a window; it had to be mounted in the horizontal plane, preferably far from metal.&lt;p&gt;The original Etak units always had the map oriented with north at the top.  That was the way sailors used maps.  Honey said they&amp;#x27;d discovered that about 20% of the population could not cope with a map that wasn&amp;#x27;t aligned with the direction they were going, which is why they started rotating the map based on vehicle travel.  Now everybody does that, and that&amp;#x27;s why.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>avar</author><text>&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    &amp;gt; I don&amp;#x27;t know if there is any research into [needing to
    &amp;gt; reorient maps when driving].
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
There is! One thing it&amp;#x27;s highly correlated with is whether you&amp;#x27;re either a heterosexual woman, or a homosexual man.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a really good description of this and other brain attributes correlated with gender or male homosexuality in the BBC show &amp;quot;The Making of Me - John Barrowman&amp;quot;. This specific part starts around 6m30s in: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dailymotion.com&amp;#x2F;video&amp;#x2F;x6a063_the-making-of-me-john-barrowman-4-o_shortfilms&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dailymotion.com&amp;#x2F;video&amp;#x2F;x6a063_the-making-of-me-joh...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s an article about it in New Scientist, &amp;quot;Gay men read maps like women&amp;quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.newscientist.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;dn7069-gay-men-read-maps-like-women&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.newscientist.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;dn7069-gay-men-read-map...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s not to suggest that you&amp;#x27;re either a homosexual man or a heterosexual woman based on this datapoint alone. There&amp;#x27;s of course plenty of people who don&amp;#x27;t fall into those groups who prefer to read maps that way, just to answer your question about whether there&amp;#x27;s research about it. Yeah, there&amp;#x27;s at least some research showing that spatial recognition is indicative of gender &amp;amp; sexual orientation.</text></comment>
<story><title>Who Needs GPS? The Story of Etak&apos;s 1985 Car Navigation System</title><url>https://www.fastcompany.com/3047828/who-needs-gps-the-forgotten-story-of-etaks-amazing-1985-car-navigation-system</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mmastrac</author><text>&amp;gt; about 20% of the population could not cope with a map that wasn&amp;#x27;t aligned with the direction they were going&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s me. I have a tough time orienting maps in my head. I still use a mnemonic for compass directions and (occasionally) use my left hand as an L to make sure I&amp;#x27;m not screwing it up.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know if there is any research into what the structural differences of brains that suffer from this might be, let alone if there is a name for it.</text></item><item><author>Animats</author><text>I saw Etak back in its early days, and Stan Honey gave me a demo. I still have one of their rate gyro&amp;#x2F;2D level units, and a compass unit. There&amp;#x27;s a motor driving a spinning disk, which warps slightly when the unit is turned, and sensors to detect the warp. The level, for sensing which way is down, is a sealed cup of liquid with the liquid height sensed with four capacitor plates outside the cup.  The liquid was proprietary, chosen to not slosh under automotive movement.  The whole thing is the size of a soda can. The compass is a 2-axis magnetometer, about 2 inches square.  It wasn&amp;#x27;t mounted on a window; it had to be mounted in the horizontal plane, preferably far from metal.&lt;p&gt;The original Etak units always had the map oriented with north at the top.  That was the way sailors used maps.  Honey said they&amp;#x27;d discovered that about 20% of the population could not cope with a map that wasn&amp;#x27;t aligned with the direction they were going, which is why they started rotating the map based on vehicle travel.  Now everybody does that, and that&amp;#x27;s why.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>learn_more</author><text>If you train yourself to use a static orientation however, you develop a much better &amp;quot;big picture&amp;quot;   awareness of the city you drive in, eventually freeing yourself from requiring navigational assistance.&lt;p&gt;The additional cognitive load is worth it for me.</text></comment>