Re: ...aluminum foil on the walls...

From: ronkean@juno.com
Date: Wed Sep 15 1999 - 00:06:40 MDT


On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 20:02:25 -0700 Spike Jones <spike66@ibm.net> writes:

 The landlord said the guy lived there several years, alone,
> with almost no furniture. All the foil was hung shiny side out (?).
> Software guy for Taligent. He paid the rent on time and wasnt actually

> damaging the apartment, soooo, OK.

It is possible that the guy had a screw loose, but there may be another
explanation. In the 1980s I was working at a communications equipment
manufacturer where the advertising writer was of the opinion that the
electronics lab about 40 feet from his office was affecting his computer
which he used for word processing. He hung aluminum foil all over two
walls of his office. He wasn't crazy, just uninformed. The lab did not
produce any significant amount of EMI (and computers in the lab worked
perfectly), computers are practically immune from normal levels of EMI,
and covering a wall with ungrounded foil would only be effective
shielding against microwaves and higher frequencies. And his computer,
like most PCs, was already in a grounded steel case.

I mentioned all this to him, but I did not make too big a deal about it
because he only spent $5 or $10 on the foil, and it made him feel better.

At the time (1986 / 1987), he was investing in the stock of a small
software company named Microsoft, which had recently come out with an
product for PCs called Windows.

Ron Kean

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