[HN Gopher] A 6 channel GPS receiver from 1993 ___________________________________________________________________ A 6 channel GPS receiver from 1993 Author : edent Score : 193 points Date : 2023-11-04 10:27 UTC (12 hours ago) (HTM) web link (mastodon.sdf.org) (TXT) w3m dump (mastodon.sdf.org) | thomasfl wrote: | That's cute! | roland35 wrote: | Adorable! As a former EE we often put little jokes and Easter | eggs in prototype PCB designs. Sometimes they made it to | production! | dan-robertson wrote: | More on gps: https://lea.hamradio.si/~s53mv/navsats/theory.html | danieldk wrote: | Another great explanatory page I have seen is: | | https://ciechanow.ski/gps/ | | Comes with a lot of animations and interactive elements. | Admittedly, I haven't gone through all of it yet since it so | detailed, but it is marvelous. | | Earlier discussion: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36180316 | agumonkey wrote: | archived link for image links seem dead | https://web.archive.org/web/20060711045257/https://lea.hamra... | tpmx wrote: | It sold for just $12 yesterday. (Some more shots here, too.) | | https://www.ebay.com/itm/274506300217 | WarOnPrivacy wrote: | I don't think it sold. The listing ended. Also add $6.50 | shipping. Still worth it. | tpmx wrote: | But it literally says: "Sold for: US $12.00"? | kebman wrote: | It's a bit on the side, but I remember my father telling me that | the PCB's he sold to the Eastern Bloc were often adorned with | microscopic greetings in Cyrillic, though the Russian spelling | was often pretty bad. | | Just like now, the Soviet Union was under heavy sanctions, and | they weren't allowed to receive the latest computer tech. The | various companies had ways around this, though, and the saying | was that they'd purposefully design their boards so that Russian | engineers could "tamper" with them in order to achieve higher | than allowed clock speeds. | | Anyway this cute board just made me think of that, so thought I'd | share it. | secondcoming wrote: | Great, and now they have Kinzhals | gambiting wrote: | It's incredibly racist, offensive and ignorant to assume that | "Eastern Block" means just Russia. Many former "eastern | block" countries nowadays are firmly with the west and oppose | Russia and their stupid invasion with all their might. Being | bundled together with the Russians is the most personally | offensive thing I've ever read on HN. | assusdan wrote: | Could you please also stop bundling all russians together? | Not all of us oppose "the west" and support our stupid | invasion. | gambiting wrote: | I didn't say either thing though? I said many of us here | in the former Eastern Block oppose Russia - and I | personally find being bundled with the Russians | offensive, as I am not a Russian. Anything you read into | it beyond this point is your own interpretation. | 5e92cb50239222b wrote: | Uh-huh, yet it's somehow not racist, offensive and ignorant | to blame all Russians for everything now. Some of you guys | have lost all the high moral ground that you once | supposedly had. | | I have a working theory that long years of "oppression" in | many Western societies of not being able to criticize any | group of certain ethnicity, nationality, culture, or | religion resulted in a buildup of sorts, so when it became | okay to pour shit on ethnic Russians and citizens of that | country (between which you make no distinction -- do you | make a distinction between Jews and Israel?), it's like the | flood gates were opened. All the hate and vitriol | accumulated over the years is directed at a group that one | is allowed to hate. | teddyh wrote: | As soon as a new subset of people have been designated as | part of the outgroup, they are basically fair game for | everybody to get their kicks in1. And boy howdy do people | love some fully justifiable carnage. | | 1. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33802663> | | (This is a re-post of | <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33913979>.) | gambiting wrote: | I feel like you've replied to the wrong person maybe? | bee_rider wrote: | I wonder if it was the pre-90's black/grey market, or the | intervening decades of open trade. | mananaysiempre wrote: | I'd guess the former, but only because I'm honestly | surprised _anything_ designed or manufactured under | government mandate post (generously) 1985 actually works. | The collapse of the Soviet Union might have marked the | start of open (!) looting, but with rare exceptions Soviet | research organizations have been in pure subsistence mode | for a decade or more before that. | bee_rider wrote: | The Kinzhal is a sort of heavily modified Iskander, I | mean all ballistic missiles are rocket science but it is | not some super futuristic weapon. | baybal2 wrote: | Betrayers of The Free World reap the benefits of living in The | Free World the most, and advance ahead on the social ladder | towards decision making positions, perpetuating these bad | decisions. | | And people who did the right decision, have to pay twice. One | is the opportunity price, and another is the externality price. | GuB-42 wrote: | If sharing useful tech is betrayal, I wish there would be | more traitors. On both sides. | ck2 wrote: | Garmin had the 100 series in 1990 | | Neat history of GPS units | | http://retro-gps.info/page33/index.html | | But what's really interesting is the first GPS watch, the | Forerunner 101 in 2003 | | https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/231 | ShamelessC wrote: | > Why is it shaped like an ambulance? Good question. | | Was hoping there was an actual answer for that question. Or am I | missing something? Otherwise reads like "good question, who | fucking knows!? certainly not me the person making the | assertion!" | skhr0680 wrote: | Am I missing some sarcasm, or do you honestly think that the | board in question doesn't look like an ambulance? | InCityDreams wrote: | But _why_ is it shaoed so? | skhr0680 wrote: | Why would someone in 1993 have had the foresight to think | that they might need to know their location to within a | hundred meters or so? | ShamelessC wrote: | No sarcasm. Yes, it looks like an ambulance (seemingly | deliberately). The tweet/fart/whatevertheyrecalled just has | strange choice of phrasing implying they will follow up on | this, then they don't. _Why_ is it an ambulance? Well who | cares, I guess - but the author of the | poof/squirt/whatevertheyrecalled is the one who draws | attention to it in the first place. | skhr0680 wrote: | Whoever designed the board may have just done it as a joke, | but I think giving the coastguard etc. an idea of your | general location when in distress would have been a good | civilian use of GPS in 1993 | makomk wrote: | It's a several decade old piece of hardware that was likely | produced in extremely limited quantity, so finding the | answer to that is probably not going to be easy. Presumably | it was produced as a promotional item made to promote their | GPS receivers for some kind of safety application that the | ambulance shape is a reference to, but good luck confirming | that in 2023. | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | The original GPS receivers in the late 80s and early 90s did not | have maps. And they used LCD screens. The one I owned by Lowrance | required 6 AA batteries. Not AAA. Not rechargeable. Optional | power through a cigarette-auto cable, but that's not helpful when | on foot. It burned through batteries like crazy. | | I owned this one: | https://web.archive.org/web/20231104153749/http://retro-gps.... | (Lowrance GlobalNav Sport) 160 x 160 pixel display. It weighed 2 | pounds with batteries. | | It provided latitude, longitude, and heading. | | Thought I would use it hiking but it was just too big to be | anything but a toy. You inserted a cartridge, specific to your | geographic area, if you wanted it to display names of | towns/cities (data on the cartridges): | | https://www.ebay.com/itm/314936082464 | | It did have "waypoints" (lat/long bookmarks, essentially) that | allowed you to plot a line as you traveled. It could tell you how | far you were to different waypoints you'd previously entered. | IIRC, it had a serial connection for waypoint download to a PC. | People tried sharing waypoint series -- "routes" -- but it just | never really had much success as I recall. It was just too | cumbersome. | metadat wrote: | Which model was yours? This page appears to show every model of | handheld GPS ever made, and Lowrance has 4 entries. | | Thanks for sharing this, I never had the chance to see one of | these units. It's so weird now to imagine GPS with no map! | | P.s. What does a six-channel GPS receiver even mean? Is more | channels more better? | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | Here's a better picture of what I owned. It had a huge hard- | plastic case: | | https://www.ebay.com/itm/314936082464 | | The antenna flipped up and doubled as a screen protector: | | http://retro-gps.info/photos/files/page2-1023-full.jpg | | https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zxUAAOSwDspimA3F/s-l1600.jpg | | Sorry, I don't remember what 6-channel means. I would guess | it could receive data from up to 6 satellites? Don't know. | | IIRC, this cost about $700 but cartridges were extra. Very | expensive for the time. It worked without the cartridges, but | I think it only displayed lat/long then, or in any case much | more limited info. The carts added more info like | town/city/state. | | Unfortunately, I could not find any YouTube videos of early | GPS receivers. | metadat wrote: | Thanks @TDT for your prompt and rapid reply, always nice to | connect with such a generous person who indulges me :D. | | What a spiffy looking unit, it looks like belongs mounted | in the dash of a 198x Mercedes, Porsche, Corvette, Bronco, | or similar alongside one of those old school built-in car | phones. | | Archive links of the eBay resources: | | 1a. https://web.archive.org/web/20231104152903/https://www. | ebay.... | | 1b. https://archive.ph/QxwrN | | 2a. https://web.archive.org/web/20231104153359/https://i.eb | ayimg... | | 2b. https://archive.ph/crpGm | | (Adding because of how many broken eBay links I've | encountered on forums over the years.. it's always | frustrating, haha.) | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | You're welcome! This is the best photo in my opinion -- | shows the antenna up (not covering screen), unit is | powered on, and the unit itself is in excellent | condition: | | https://web.archive.org/web/20231104153749/http://retro- | gps.... | skhr0680 wrote: | https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2. | .. | | > The receiver has six channels that continuously track four | primary GPS satellites and sequentially acquire and track all | other visible and healthy satellites on the fifth and sixth | channels. | jdietrich wrote: | _> What does a six-channel GPS receiver even mean? Is more | channels more better?_ | | The operating principle of GPS is more complex than I can | usefully summarise in a comment, but essentially the | satellites are continuously broadcasting an extremely | accurate time signal that the receiver uses to calculate the | time-of-flight to each satellite. GPS receivers need signals | from a minimum of four satellites to provide a location fix. | | There are usually more than four satellites visible, so | additional channels allow for more than the minimum number of | signals to be received. this can provide improved accuracy, | faster time-to-first-fix and better resilience to | interference. If you're receiving five or six signals, you | don't lose your positioning fix when one of the satellites | moves below the horizon or is obstructed by terrain. | Reflected signals can cause error, because the time-of-flight | of the signal will be greater than the actual distance to the | satellite; extra channels allow these errors to be | compensated for. | | For a long time, GPS receivers typically had no more than 12 | channels, which was the maximum number that would actually be | useful given the limited number of satellites in the original | GPS constellation. Since then, many other navigation | satellite constellations have launched, so between 40 and 60 | navigation satellites are typically visible at any moment. | Receivers have commensurately improved, with even basic | receivers often having upwards of 48 channels. | eastbound wrote: | How does encryption work on GPS signals? Since it seems the | military have access to better accuracy, it's not just a | wavelength that is broadcasted. | jdietrich wrote: | Prior to 2000, the civilian signal (C/A code) was | deliberately degraded by the addition of small random | variations in the time signal, but this is no longer the | case. A separate military signal (P-code) still exists, | which is encrypted in order to prevent spoofing; to my | knowledge, the encryption scheme used for the military | signal is still classified. | stcroixx wrote: | Garmin handheld unit in the early 2000's still had an LCD | screen. I still have and use mine as a backup. | supportengineer wrote: | I have the eMap. Still works. In 2002 I tethered my laptop to | my phone and connected the eMap to the laptop. I had custom | Java software that would read my position from the serial | connection, and then post it to a custom PHP page, and there | was a different page where you could view my position on a | Yahoo Map. | lm411 wrote: | That Lowrance is a monster. Pretty cool though. | | My first GPS receiver was an old Magellan. I can't recall the | model, but mid 90s, very basic features. Eventually after | turning it on it would get a fix, and give you coordinates / | speed / bearing. No names of towns or anything like that though | it did have support for some number of waypoints. | | I typically used it for multi week hikes through the rockies | where I was navigating primarily with topo maps & compass, and | about once a day I'd turn on the GPSr to validate my location. | It was too much of a pig on batteries to use it any more often, | but, it was a reasonable size for hiking. | | Totally different world vs the Garmin GPSMap 66i I currently | use, but, I'd probably trust the old Magellan more than I do | 66i on week/longer excursions. | aziaziazi wrote: | Wondering why << No rechargeable >> ? I recall rechargeable AAs | in late 90, didn't they exist in early 80 ? | hexmiles wrote: | Not OP, but i remember having a camera that use AAs and would | not support rechargeable. While it powered up, it would not | take photos and instead shutdown. I think they used to be | able to deliver less power, also when i put them in the | gameboy the little led was a tad dimmer that non rechargeable | one even when fully charged | ljf wrote: | Even in the early 90s my good rechargeable batteries (AA) | only put out 1.2v when freshly charged and dropped lower than | that as they ran. They also ran far shorter than duracell or | similar expensive batteries. | | So one the voltage may have been too low and two the usable | loge might have been too short for these power hungry devices | _whiteCaps_ wrote: | I had a radio that could handle rechargeable vs non - it | included a dummy AA battery that you used when using non- | rechargeable batteries, so you'd use (IIRC) 7 rechargeables + | 1 dummy or 8 rechargeables. | saltcured wrote: | The first "portable" GPS receiver I ever saw was during a tour | of a relative's military base in the mid to late 1980s. | | It was mounted in a travel case where the lid removed exposed | the control panel. I want to say it was about the size of a | shoe box. Similar in length and height to one of those hinged | metal ammunition cans, but wider if I remember correctly. It | seemed hefty enough to have a lead-acid battery inside, but | they did not give details. | | You set it on the ground and waited minutes for a fix. Then it | just displayed numeric grid coordinates of your location with | segmented digit display cells somewhat like a 1970s calculator. | thom wrote: | GPS seems fairly pedestrian now but my dad had one of the early | Garmin models in the 90s and it was a kind of magic back then. | Even outside of the actual location info, just seeing this thing | in your hand listening to satellites up in space felt incredibly | powerful. Later on you could get units compatible with Windows CE | and mobile devices and it was easy to see why it would be a | killer app on smartphones. It's sad that the complexity and | cleverness is all hidden now. | tpmx wrote: | I mean, both GPS and WiFi was super exciting stuff in the early | 2000s. There was a GPS magazine for GPS terminal enthusiasts | (!). It's still sort of around: https://www.gpsworld.com/. | callalex wrote: | Also kids these days don't know the pain of GPS taking 3-10 | minutes to get a position fix without almanac data. | thom wrote: | Yeah, navigating a big city meant finding a crossroads where | you might be able to see a bit of sky. I used to wear a | shoulder bag and attach the antenna to the strap to stay | locked on. | mareko wrote: | Or the days before GPS where taking a road trip inevitably | resulted in a big argument with your partner about directions | spookthesunset wrote: | Back then even light tree cover would sometimes trash the | signal enough to lose position. | | While modern GPS can get a position fix pretty quick, a cold | start on standalone units can still take a while before it | discovers enough satellites. | | The crazy thing to me is now days my little tiny watch can do | Wifi, Several Bluetooth protocols, 5G, NFC, Wireless charging | and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting about. Oh and it | supports a variety of global navigation satellite systems. | Don't forget the high-res OLED display too. And the fact it | is fully watertight. | | All that while having a fairly impressive battery life. | rz2k wrote: | Take a look at the https://phyphox.org/ app for lower level | access to the sensors on Android and iPhones. There is a GPS | section that gives you coordinates but unfortunately doesn't | tell you about each satellite. The precision of other phone | sensors seems even more amazing. | nulld3v wrote: | You could also try https://github.com/barbeau/gpstest if you | are looking for something more GPS focused. | 3760451 wrote: | 3760451 | 3760451 wrote: | Hos | mattew wrote: | The interesting thing about GPS back then was that the location | data you got back were randomly slightly incorrect every time you | got a reading. I'm pretty sure this was so it wasn't useful for | military purposes. | | I think it was called differential post correction but if you had | a base station with a known location you could snap your | incorrect points to the difference generated at that correction | level and get the true location after the fact. | | Source: GIS major in late 90s when this stuff was a lot more | magical | toomuchtodo wrote: | https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/ | | Selective Availability? | mattew wrote: | That's right. It was selective availability and you used | differential post correction to clean the data up and get | accurate locations for the data you were capturing. Thanks | for the correction! ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-11-04 23:00 UTC)