tmb@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (Thomas M. Breuel) (02/04/90)
I have just bought a Toshiba T1000 and travelled with it to Europe. American security check-ins at airports seem to be satisfied if the computer works (i.e., if you can turn it on), but in Germany, they insisted that I run the computer through the X-ray machine. They assured me that it was completely harmless and that they ran "hundreds" of laptops through the machine daily. [Airport security personnel was also extremely rude there. They were amused and unconcerned when I complained that they put my pack of floppy disks, which contained a month's worth of work, on top of an X-ray machine (I was concerned about stray magnetic fields).] Unfortunately, right after running it through the machine, the disk controller stopped working. Now, I would like to know: * what do other people do with their laptops when they travel? * has anyone had similar problems? * what is the photon flux and the energy used in modern airport X-ray machines? Do you know whether this is sufficient to erase EPROMS, alter static RAM data, damage chips? * what are the magnetic fields inside the airport X-ray machines? * what about the new neutron-activation devices? Thanks, Thomas.