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I've yet to find some footage of one working. My Mum remembers using one as a kid. I believe the image was green? Curious about how clear thevimage was.
I have an old advertising cardboard fan from a shoe store and on the back had the word X ray on the back and never knew why.. I did find out just recently what that meant.. Thank you for your video and thank you inventor of internet so we can learn so much in an hour...life is awesome today if your a history seeker...
Hello. Thank you for your very interesting and informative video. I was looking this up because my father, John Manly, took this technology one step further and invented the airport baggage X-ray machine. He worked for the British Government in the Ministry of Defence as a research scientist, his speciality being radiography, at a place called 'Fort Halstead' just outside Sevenoaks in the county of Kent. In the early 70s, at the behest of the Israeli government, he was sent there to try and solve the problem of the almost weekly airline hijackings. Members of the PLO were simply boarding planes with a gun in their hand luggage and hijacking aircraft. At the time, Israeli Air were hand searching all luggage so check in time was 4 hours before flight and therefore somewhat unmanageable. Their idea was a sort of X-ray movie camera. X-ray is a light and X-ray film not that dissimilar to normal movie film only a lot more expensive. It certainly did not exist as a movie roll with sprocket holes etc. They wanted my dad to build a X-ray movie camera where the luggage was delivered in front of the 'lens' on a conveyer belt, an exposure was taken and then the film went through the developer, stopper type chemicals associated with normal medical X-rays before arriving in the viewer like cinema editors were used to. He said this was all entirely possible but ludicrously expensive and he had a theory about X-ray fluorescence and video imagery. Two years later he built the first airport baggage X-ray machine complete with a green video screen familiar to those who remember 'Space Invaders'. Not medical grade resolution but enough to see a 'gun in a hand bag.' which was the Israeli Government stipulation. His prototype was tested at Heathrow airport and having proved itself, the Queen and Prince Phillip came to his place of work to see it for themselves. My dad was a typical 'brown overall' type boffin and not one to take the stage but on this occasion he had the imagination to go up to 'Theatre Land' in London's West End, seek out a prop agency and hired a theatrical set of the Crown Jewels. He had asked his Government contacts if he could borrow the real thing but apparently that was 'just not the done thing.' He filled a suitcase with shirts, under wear and as much of the Crown Jewels as he could - the Scepter and the Orb. The Crown was too big in case you were thinking of re-enacting it. He asked the Queen if she had packed the case herself and had anything to declare? He didn't really. She had never been asked this. Nobody had ever been asked this but I thought I would throw it in for comic effect. Anyway, the case went through the machine and the outline of the Scepter and Orb appearing on the screen made the Queen laugh apparently. The upshot of this story is that the UK Government own the license for the technology but it is free to anyone who wants to use it - whats the point of having safety at your own airports but the plane coming in to land is from a place that doesn't have it? A great example of modern day philanthropy - it's what we all need, have it. My father was never recognised for his contribution to airline safety. Whenever I mention it to people the most common response is - "So it's his fault we all have to &^%ing queue?!?!" My reply is always - "would you get on the plane without it?" No. They wouldn't. You wouldn't and I wouldn't. My dad has saved more lives than it is possible to count and every time I go through an airport I get misty eyed as I put my laptop in the tray, separate my liquids and push my bag onto the conveyer. I just wish when I picked it up at the far end it had the Crown Jewels in it.
Great video of what's inside those machines! :) We think these people who made and used this must have been retarded in retrospect, but give it 40-50 years and there will be youtube videos like this about how the current generations poisoned their bodies eating out of plastic containers, and plastic lined cans that leeched BPA or other chemical derivatives into our bodies.
Remember getting my feet scanned as a child, around 5, in the early seventies in the UK (Cradley Heath nr Birmingham) in a very old shoe shop. Remember looking inside via the viewer and I could see my toes! Thankfully only had it done the once.
