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

  • prenatal_confusion
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    6 days ago

    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.

    • bizarroland@fedia.io
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      6 days ago

      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.

      • prenatal_confusion
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        5 days 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!

    • Anivia
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      5 days 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