In Paris, we used to have special boards at big stations: a map of the subway system, and a button board with one button per station in the city; if you pressed a button, the path would light on the map explaining how to reach it:

https://spacefiction.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/indicateur_...

Those appeared in 1937, so they're very old tech; it would be fun to have a pocket version.

They've since disappeared and been replaced by touch screens, but those are just not the same.

https://spacefiction.fr/2017/11/06/patrick-modiano-et-la-mem...