Japanese company 'Maspro Denkoh' released a GPS car navigation system with a built-in CD-i player, released in Japan in 1992

We discovered quite a few new CD-i players this year, especially from Japanese companies. Recently we received a tip about Japanese company "Maspro Denkoh". Nowadays Maspro Denkoh is a Japanese brand in TV receiving equipment. Back in 1992, they were pioneering in GPS navigation equipment as well. In April 1992, Maspro developed the world's first Navigator, a GPS navigation system including voice-guiding. The most interesting part for us was that this Navigator was based on CD-i technology and it could even play CD-i discs!

It looks like this system consisted out of two units, one screen with IR sensor and a case-system that holds and reads the discs. There was a version with buttons on the screen-unit to navigate through the menus. It really surprises me to see CD-i in car navigation. According to their website, the system was released in 1992 (considering the launch in USA and Europe this looks futuristic. As always with Japanese CD-i stuff, information is rare, but it's clear a lot of innovations were developed in Japan, even without japanese companies having stepped in the CD-i business until the end!

[Thanks, Maspro Denkoh company archives]