Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!ima!johnl
From: johnl@ima.ISC.COM (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Laptops and Airport Security
Keywords: Laptop, X-rays
Message-ID: <866@ima.ISC.COM>
Date: 29 Jan 88 15:57:50 GMT
References: <4426@garfield.UUCP> <3056@killer.UUCP> <4514@ecsvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine)
Organization: Not enough to make any difference
Lines: 19

In article <4514@ecsvax.UUCP> mjg@ecsvax.UUCP (Michael Gingell) writes:
>Has anyone had any real experience of an X-Ray machine causing harm
>to a computer or floppy disk ?.  I think this is more mythical than
>actual.

I used to travel on business a lot, and now and then I'd forget to take
floppy disks out of my briefcase, they'd X-Ray them, and they'd end up
unreadable when I arrived.  (For that and other reasons, we were encouraged
to mail ahead the important ones.)

The problem is that the various machines are adjusted to wildly different
field strengths.  I have them hand-inspect cameras and film, because although
it's true that most film won't be affected by correctly adjusted machines,
you never know the situation with machines that are run 20 hours a day by
largely unskilled (in radiography) operators.
-- 
John R. Levine, IECC, PO Box 349, Cambridge MA 02238-0349, +1 617 492 3869
{ ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something
Gary Hart for President -- Let's win one for the zipper.