Magellan 1000M GPS receiver, 1990

Magellan 1000M GPS receiver, made by Magellan Systems Corporation, California, United States, 1990.

The Magellen Corporation developed handheld, battery powered GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers from 1986. The Magellen 1000M was designed for the military market. Initially, the military controlled GPS was equipped with a feature known as 'selective availability', which added intentional errors of up to 100m to publicly available signals. This was in order to prevent enemies being able to gain accurate location information through civilian GPS systems. During the First Gulf War, however, a shortage of military systems meant that civilian devices had to be bought and donated for military uses, leading to the temporary turning off of selective availability. In 2000, Bill Clinton authorised the discontinuation of the use of selective availability, in order to make GPS more accurate and responsive for everyone.