Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!wugate!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!mmm
From: mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: OTP (really?) EPROMS
Message-ID: <23128@cup.portal.com>
Date: 15 Oct 89 20:39:18 GMT
References: <841@dms.UUCP> <1989Oct13.232523.3999@sj.ate.slb.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 11

jones@bach (Clark Jones) says:

> Many years ago, I heard of one chap in the UK who could not afford an EPROM
> eraser, so he would mail his EPROMs, along with return postage, to his
> friend in Belfast.  The EPROMs would return blank.  The tale speaks, if true,
> (a) of the agressiveness of the x-ray equipment that the Royal Post Office
> was using for screening packages and (b) the rather leakyness of the floating

I find this a little hard to believe.  I recall reading about x-ray erasure
of plastic-encapsulated EPROM's in an old Intel memory design handbook, and
I believe the figure they quoted was 100 rads.