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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.rumor
Subject: Re: Strobe lights -> crashes
Message-ID: <5372@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 29-Mar-85 13:26:09 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5372
Posted: Fri Mar 29 13:26:09 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Mar-85 13:26:09 EST
References: <1185@ihuxi.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 16

> I have a repeatable example of photographic strobes causing a computer
> to crash. I have a microprocessor "training" board which I used for
> several years at our annual christmas "toy and doll night". Every time
> the photographer took a picture nearby, the micro would go belly-up,
> and have to be reset. The closest thing it had to an optical sensor
> was its EPROMS, and these were not erased by the flash. ...

Most silicon devices are light-sensitive to some degree.  In the fine
print of some EPROM data sheets, you will find a warning that the window
should be covered with something opaque even in the absence of UV intense
enough to erase the EPROM, because normal light kicks up photoelectric
currents that are strong enough to interfere with normal operation.  This
might account for some of the problem.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry