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by dole 2353 days ago
In the late-80's to mid-90's, DeLorme Street Atlas USA was one of the best consumer street map solutions. I remember using the DOS version (3.5" floppies, IIRC) on an amber gas plasma Toshiba T3200SX [1] "laptop" or some similar model with the advantage of being able to print out turn-by-turn directions pre-trip but without a GPS module which came later in the early-mid 90's. Surprisingly, I can't find any images of the old monochrome versions on a quick search but you can imagine the jump to the full color CD-ROM Windows 3.1 versions just a few years later. Mapquest took over in the late 90's.

I mention all this just because OP's article mentions the mid-80's Etak system [2] (Nolan Bushnell!) which I'd never heard about and had to look up... and it looked almost like having a Vectrex in your car that ran maps off a standard cassette tape. Pretty wild.

[1] https://www.instructables.com/id/Toshiba-T3200SX-Portable-De...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHCCjlSWbHE&t=2m