It was not quite as bad - in 96, when I got my first GPS, I spent $300 for a 280g device that went through 4xAA NiCd in four hours, would refuse to work in urban canyons (indeed any street with more than four-floor buildings) or underneath a tree, and had a four line text display and direction indicator with an arrow moving in 15 degree increments. TTFF was painfully slow - 8-15 minutes, but once it got going and had lots of clear sky above it, it was quite as good and reliable as my current SIRFIII mouse.