Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!dalcs!garfield!martyn
From: martyn@garfield.UUCP (Martyn Quigley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Laptops and Airport Security
Summary: Don't Panic
Keywords: Laptop, X-rays
Message-ID: <4426@garfield.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jan 88 22:11:28 GMT
Reply-To: martyn@garfield.UUCP (Martyn Quigley)
Organization: Memorial University of Newfoundland
Lines: 22

A while back there was discussion about laptops and airport security.  Folks
might be interested in this.

Over Christmas, I travelled by air thus:

   St John's (NFLD) --> Toronto (Ontario) --> Heathrow (London) --> St John's

and hefted my Toshiba 3100 with me. At St John's I asked for the machine to
be hand-checked which they did, but they made me power it up.  At Toronto I
asked for it to be hand-checked, which they did but they did not make me 
power it up.  At Heathrow I asked for it to be hand-checked.  They told me
"No x-ray, no travel".  Since there were 6 of them and they were all bigger
than me, the computer duly went through the x-ray machine.

The first thing I did when I got back home was power up the computer.  No
problems at all, all files intact, boot proceeded normally etc.  Whew!

In fact, I was in such a hurry that I forgot to change the voltage selector
back to 120v from English sparks, but even that didn't bother the machine.

Conclusion: *MY* computer did not suffer by going through the x-ray machine
            at Heathrow.  (I do not guarantee that your machine will not.)