I’m attending a conference in the first week in November, and one of the main sponsors is making a big thing of theming one of the opening social events around retro-computing/gaming…
I’d love to take my Psion MC400 laptop (1989 vintage!) along but I’m based in NW England and the conference is in Seville, Spain. I’m flying via Schipol and I’m worried the LCD screen on the MC400 is too fragile to survive 4 flights…?
Lots of these old mono-LCD panels have “screen rot/bleed” (black splodges that seem to spread across the screen) which I guess is some sort of mechanical failure of the screen layers/pixel structure. I have one MC400 with an un-blemished screen.
Even in hand luggage the cabin pressure dips to to equivalent to 2km altitude… I’m worried this may be enough to affect the screen?
Does anyone have any experience with air travel with old/delicate electronics?
Good question… I don’t know. But I’m prepared to speculate! As careful baking is a possible helpful treatment for diseased LCDs, I would say keeping the LCD from getting too cold is a good idea. And obviously not getting knocked. So wrap it up in something warm and soft, perhaps?
Also just speculating in the absence of personal experience:
Besides temperature and pressure differentials, air in planes tends to be rather dry. Provided that at least some of the issues with older LCDs seem to be related to aging seals, this may provide not the best of prospects. At least, you may expose them to a few more extreme cycles over a short period of time. It seems like air-tight packaging may be advisable, but this would also heighten the risks of condensation… On the other hand, lugables and in consequence portables were developed with air travel in mind. So these should have been fit for purpose, originally.
