If you are traveling to the US- Charge up your electronic devices first

[MineralMan]

2. Way back in the 1980s, I remember

having to turn on my primitive portable PC during security screening. It was a Zenith lunchbox PC of the XT variety, with two 5-1/4" floppy drives and an LCD screen in a unit that actually was about the size of a lunch box. Trouble is, it didn't use batteries, but required being plugged into AC power. Few people were traveling with computers at the time, really, although there were some laptops available at the time.

The first time I carried it, the screeners weren't sure what to do. I had the cord, so the screener walked me to an outlet, and I fired it up with an MS-DOS 2.0 disc in the A: drive. Once it started up, I was good to go. A couple of years later, when I had an actual battery-powered laptop, they still required that you start up any computer you had.

Security screening didn't start after 9/11. It started long before that, to prevent hijackings. Electronic equipment was suspect, even then.