Musing about the evolution of Autos

About 5 years ago, I was teaching youth how to read a map and compass for some badge or another. When I grew up, Montesano WA had a magnetic declination of 22 degrees, which was important to add to compass bearing. So I went to find the magnetic declination here in the delta, only to find it is zero. (and that the north pole has moved in my lifetime, so it is only 17 degrees in my home town now)

I thought about trying to teach the importance of true north vs. magnetic north, and it hit me. When I was 20, scientific calculators went from $180 to $150 and so I bought one, giving up my sliderule forever. Today, a $5 calculator will do all mine did. (I took a mandatory college class in slide rule the quarter before)

This was the slide rule moment for compasses, these kids would never use a compass, by the time they were 20, a GPS would be so cheap, they did not need to know about the magnetic north poles travels. And so it is, GPS prices today are much lower than 5 years ago, and still plummeting.
NOAA's Geophysical Data Center - Geomagnetic Data
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...netic_Field_Declination_from_1590_to_1990.gif

Today it is a 'feature' to get a GPS, but I expect it to be in all cars in another 5 years.

 

In the promotional material for my 1968 Toyota Crown it lists as safety features: -
Padded dashboard
Padded A pillars
Padded Steering wheel centre
Zone toughened windscreen
Padded front seat back
Front seatbelts for driver and passenger
Duel circuit hydraulic drum brakes

I agree that when I was a kid the thrill was going in the car.
My dad's car, the earliest car I can remember was a 1958-9 FC Holden Panel-van. It was fitted with a second row seat and was used to ferry around a family of 10, yes 10, 2 parents and their 8 children! This poor old girl had a rust hole in the floor you could put your foot through even though it was only about 12 years old.

How do you load 10 people in a 6-seater car?
Mum and dad in the front, dad always drove, mum never learnt to drive. My baby sister, the youngest sat on mum's lap, my little brother got the middle of the front seat. My oldest 2 sisters and oldest 2 brothers sat across the back seat. Lucky they weren't too fat, and my next older brother and I sat in the back. In later years my little brother came to join us in the cargo area to wave at people through the back window while my little sister got the middle of the front seat. It wasn't long before my loder brothers got cars of their own and my sisters were moving out to further their teaching careers in teaching easing the burden on the old car.

The old FC had no radio and no heater, a cloth was used to demist the windows and the driver’s window was almost always down. On hot days the back tailgate window was left hinged up to provide flow through ventilation as well as both front windows, the rear side windows did not wind down just as there were no back doors. Access to the back seat was either over the back of the front or back seat.

Every drive in that old car was an adventure in itself, there was no need for entertainment systems. But we talked to one another too, we noticed things around us, we played games and waved to other motorists, it was fun! The next car, a 1965, Ford Falcon XP sedan also had no radio or heater!

Like The Electric Me I am happy for the improved safety in modern cars but I miss that connection old cars gave you to the outside world as you passed through it. Today’s cars are isolation, or sensory deprivation chambers on wheels. We remove ourselves from the countryside we drive through and replace it with an artificial world from somewhere else just as boring as the one we put ourselves in at home.

Would I go back? Well I go part way back every now and then, when I drive the old Crown, but I much prefer to drive my Prius. As I get older I pick comfort over adventure more and more.

I keep telling my son what life was like when I was a child, and I wish I knew more about the life of my grand parents too. I was always fascinated that they were born in a century before my century. They were around when cars first hit the streets in Australia, gas lighting was used for street lighting and slide rules were the computer of choice.

My son can not remember a time before computers and the internet is as much part of his life as the, I was going to say telephone, but we never had a phone in our home until I was a teenager and using it to make calls was mostly forbidden. We went out of the house to communicate with our friends, my son stays in touch on line with friends he never really meets as well as friends he goes to school with. Mobile phones were the stuff of Thunderbirds ™ and looked like house phones when I was young, my son sends TXT messages on his like it is a well used second language and the phone is always with him. I played up in high school typing classes, why would a mechanic need typing skills? My son taught himself to type at over 100 words per minutes!

Where is the world going?
Will things change as much in the next 40 years as they have in the last 40?
I expect so in spades! So do up that seat belt and hang on for the rest of the ride!!

 

I feel the same way as you guys. That's why I have a 1965 Mustang GT Fastback with a high performance K-Code 289 cu in V8 engine, 4 on the floor, no power brakes, no power steering, no A/C, no power windows or locks. But it has an AM radio and a heater and front disc brakes. And wind wings to let the fresh air in.
The ride is rough, shakes and rattles but when you step on the gas, you can hear the V8 rumble. There's such a delightful feeling driving these old American cars. It only gets about 8 mpg but that's why there's the Prius.

 

Yeah, compasses are generally considered outdated... as are different types of maps... until you really, really need one. And then it's everything. I would urge you not to skip out on the basics with those kids - it's not enough to know that something works, you should also understand how it works, why it works, and the history behind it. I mentor a high school robotics team... we could be all high tech with the kids, work with them to design everything in a CAD program and send it out to have parts made in a machine shop, screw it together and be done. Some teams do that. But the kids learn so much more and get so much more out of it by doing everything by hand, by actually using a 50 year old break or shear to work with aluminum and build the part they want from stock.

Plus, when your out backpacking, you can't always be sure your GPS will survive the trip - batteries die, electronics hate getting wet, etc. Better to have a decent, laminated topographic map and compass. Even if the compass breaks, you can make a cheap substitute from a simple sewing needle!

 

I walked from Mexico to Canada on the PCT in 81, so I know I used to need map and compass, I just see an end to that. Soon they will be like sextants, we see them used in historical movies, but never in real life.