What an amazing story. I enjoyed it start to finish. I remember the “Etak” name, but did not realize the complexity of the system, the challenges of the first map digitization, and the hardware requirements in the car. Or the fact that they symbol goes back to the “Asteroids” game that I enjoyed decades ago in arcades!
And, um, what’s really amazing is seeing a staff pic of a startup that doesn’t feature the genetic spectrum of the entire third world.
Never thought I’d miss the ‘80s. Even Mountain View was semi-affordable then.
“With that in mind, Stan decided to call his company Etak, which is a Polynesian term for moving navigational reference points”
I thought it was just “Kate” backwards.
What a great article. You wonder who the visionaries are today. Hopefully not just dystopian stuff.
I was mostly VAX 11/780 clusters and MicroVAX; had the latter at home for a while.