Using GPS in the Year 1565 | Hacker News Reader

Using GPS in the Year 1565

verbeeld.be

200 pointslapnect31 comments

For anyone else confused (this took me the longest time, skimming the comments and then opening the article): no, indeed, this has nothing to do with GPS. They mean coordinates, not satellites. It's about indexing locations of old maps

What they mean is they use GPS to get their current coordinates, and then superimpose that on old maps. Because without GPS, how does the Allmaps Here app get your coordinates in order to plot it on old maps?

It is FAR more useful on a smartphone with GPS but it also works on a desktop connection if the geolocation of your IP is accurate. For me it was spot on.

If you just want to view some places without giving location access, use this link: https://dev.explore.allmaps.org/

Thanks!

I also noticed that the search is broken

I wonder what the sources of the maps are. They seem most plentiful around the Netherlands amd Belgium. Also, the map for Stockholm had what looked like handwritten Dutch text om it.

Also in Boston!

That works a lot better, especially if there's nothing in your area.

It's really interesting to see how far off these old charts are when overlaid on modern GIS data, but still pretty impressive for the time.

The map portal of the Swiss government also has a bunch of old map layers available. For example, here's Zurich in 1883.

https://map.geo.admin.ch/#/map?lang=en&center=2682327.37,124...

Can I plugin my app here? If on Android, use navigateanymap.eu, snap a picture of that map from 1565, match some features using OpenStreetMap (although things like rivers, roads and buildings may be different from that year, making matching more difficult) and walk using that old map.

A bit off topic, but the proliferation of maps and GPS is not celebrated enough IMHO. It's such a mind shift regarding freedom of movement - as a kid (1990s), going somewhere new carried a strong risk of getting lost, so we rarely ventured far. Even if we had maps, they were not detailed enough, and it was difficult to figure out where you are exactly. Many from my parent's generation (now in their 60s, 70s) never learned to work with maps (with or without GPS) which limits them to travel alone only to places they already know. There are also other factors (ability to call for help, looking up your travel connections etc.), but IMHO the detailed maps + GPS is the biggest factor in this mindshift where travelling/exploring anywhere is easy and accessible to anyone.

Yes, pretty amazing. While I did have a couple of free tourist maps, I planned and executed a 1700km road trip to New Zealand basically using Google Maps on my laptop and then simply navigated on my phone. It seems incredible that you could entrust everyday's travel plans using this and it just worked. Sure you had to make sure you had downloaded maps (or at least cached) ahead of time for spotty networks. Only 25 years or so ago you absolutely had to have paper maps (and know how to read them) to embark on such a venture

For the UK the Scottish national library has a similar map finder.

https://maps.nls.uk

With a bit of a london focus (since that's where I live)

https://www.layersoflondon.org/

https://mapco.net/

https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/agas.htm

Finally this site:

https://www.oldmapsonline.org/

A few of them definitely aren't lined up right, but wow! What a fun thing! Today I learned the bike path that runs by my apartment was once a railroad.

I learned there was a huge non-residential structure in the park across the street. I am now curious what it was.

(Not the same thing, but related)

Map platforms from Brazilian cities that allow browsing with old map layers:

Curitiba 1857

https://geocuritiba.ippuc.org.br/portal/apps/webappviewer/in...

São Paulo 1930

https://geosampa.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/PaginasPublicas/_SBC.a...

About 20 years ago I used OziExplorer https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Oziexplorer to also georeference (back then I think we just called it calibration) maps about e.g. POTS installations from the 1950s and then use a serial GPS and a laptop to navigate them. It was fun to see the change.

Cool idea! I can't seem to be able to find information about the maps though, like date, author or something similar. I'd really like that!

Agreed about the date. Some maps have the author/publisher's name (look at the top or bottom of the map).

If you like this kind of things the French state geographic portal (https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr) lets you load crazy tiles like the Cassiny maps (from 1682) and the military staff map from 1820.

It's a blast, but in French only so you'll have to fiddle around a little.

In FireFox I can translate the site to English.

How do I use this? When I enter an address in the search box it just comes up with "Error:". There is no map showing.

The hint text in the type in box says to give the URL of an old map, not the current name of a location

You need to allow location access, then it displays the map for your current location.

If you just want to view some places without giving location access, use this link: https://dev.explore.allmaps.org/

The longitude problem wasn't really even solved until 1773 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_longitude

A friend worked on something similar for historic maps of Japan

https://stroly.com/ja/search?keyword=History

Does the link lead to a completely different website for anyone else? The page does not load but the domain is completely different.

In a terminal, what does `dig www.verbeeld.be` return for you?

;; ANSWER SECTION: www.verbeeld.be. 300 IN A 205.196.210.242

EDIT: I'm really confused because it's the same IP I get from various "online dig" services. When the page loads, I get an HTTP 301 that redirects to that suspicious looking domain that somehow does not resolve... it also happens across multiple browsers and devices.

neat!

One important thing which is missing is the year of the map (a name would be nice too, but not as important as the year)

Also, on Android, all icons blink on the index page, but that's pretty minor.

Using gps to understand a map of 1565?

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