The first chart plotter, 1985 & Italian

C-Map owns this ‘historic’ machine, which is supposedly the first chart plotter (bigger here) ever sold in the U.S. That was around 1985, when Navionics founders Giuseppe Carnevali and Fosco Bianchetti developed the first crude vector charts and this Datamarine-labeled plotter to show them. (Bianchetti soon went off to found C-Map). Wasn’t it about 5 years later that the first PC charting program came out? At any rate, we’ve come a hell of long ways in 20 years, and Carnevali and Bianchetti—who still run their companies—deserve some of the credit.

Now, would anyone care to predict what marine electronics will look like in another 20 years? 10? 5? With that, I wish you all a wonderful new year.