NavList:

Andrés, you wrote:
"back in 1978 was news today is history"

Thank you for posting that article. It's interesting history. That year, 1978, seems to have been the year that GPS hit the mainstream press for the first time. While not exactly mainstream, the journal of the Institute of Navigation (US) devoted their entire summer 1978 issue to this new and revolutionary technology. Here's the table of contents of that issue from the ION web site:

Overview (GPS System Description)
Principle Of Operation Of Navstar And System Characteristics (GPS System Description)
The Navigation Technology Program (GPS System Description)
Satellite Frequency Standards (Space Segment)
Signal Structure And Performance Characteristics (Space Segment)
The GPS Navigation Message (Space Segment)
Control Segment And User Performance (Control Segment)
GPS Receiver Operation (User Equipment)
Phase I GPS User Equipment (User Equipment)
Performance Enhancement Of GPS User Equipment (User Equipment)
GPS User Equipment Error Models (User Equipment)
Test And Evaluation Procedures For GPS User Equipment (User Equipment)
GPS Phase I User Equipment Field Tests (User Equipment)
Civil Marine Applications Of The GPS (Miscellaneous Topics)
Integration Of GPS With Inertial Navigation Systems (Miscellaneous Topics)
Aircraft Navigation With The Limited Operational Phase Of The Navstar GPS (Miscellaneous Topics)
A Navigation Algorithm For The Low-Cost GPS Receiver (Miscellaneous Topics)

The author of the third article above was R.L. Easton, who I presume is NavList member Richard Easton's father.

I first became aware of this "all GPS" issue from 1978 only in 2010 while browsing a collection of these old journals in the attic of the Treworgy Planetarium at Mystic Seaport. For me the entertaining coincidence is that the summer of 1978 was when I first learned celestial navigation. Probably a reasonable thing at the time... considering the price back then for a GPS receiver (as listed in the "New Scientist" article posted by Andrés) was $20,000 ...or about $70,000 in 2013 dollars.

-FER

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