• by using a paper map like some sort of mystical land pirate

    Oof, I remember going to people’s homes to install phone and Internet links using paper maps because we didn’t have maps on our phones back then and the GPS were mostly shit and out of date.
    Some of the smaller villages were barely there on the regional maps, aside from maybe a dot near a main road with none of their actual streets.
    For these, we’d call or stop by city hall, sometimes they’d have a shitty map or just directions.

    I’m getting old…

    • Damage@feddit.it
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      5 months ago

      I remember when Google started taking photos of roads to create StreetView, I thought it was crazy. Surely it would have been impossible to document enough roads to make it worthwhile!

    • lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 months ago

      Ngl, I still do the modern version of this. I tend to leave GPS off on my phone, so I’ll use Google Maps or OpenStreetMap to plan a route beforehand and then just use road signs to navigate.

    • hjpoijnerflkjn@feddit.de
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      5 months ago

      Wow, actually wondering about your age and the country. Pretty interesting and I am not even that young.

      • Damage@feddit.it
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        5 months ago

        Not OP. Decent smartphones have been around for less than two decades. I used to have a Windows Mobile PDA with GPS and navigation software (I had one called Navigon), those sucked at the time, lots of outdated maps and terrible navigation… “It’ll get you there, but don’t expect to take the best route!”.

        Of course it was all offline navigation, 'cause back then we paid internet by the minute!