Forum:EMP bursts resulting from nuclear detonation and electronics in the wasteland

The great war was two hours long, with every capable nation in the world exchanging firepower. Wouldn't the resultant EMP bursts cause any electronics to be permanently unusable? Metalfrenchtoast 05:25, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

I believe EMP effects last only a certain amount of time- Andromada101 2:37pm, Jan 30, 2010
 * Uh, no. Contrary to what most games present, an electromagnetic pulse will surely fry electronics permanently, even deactivated ones. As for the world for Fallout, here is a thread with some very good explanations provided for why the technology managed to survive. http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/0/08/Personal_Sig_Image.gif Tagaziel (call!) 20:09, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, man. Always nice to hear things straight from a Navy electrical engineer when you want to cut through all the bullshit. Funny how they devised a way to achieve cold fusion (Micro, at that), but they still stuck to the ol' punch cards and vacuum tubes everywhere else. Good thing to know about the aluminum foil, though.Metalfrenchtoast 23:08, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't know EMP's can completly fry a computer, thanks! Now I know, and knowing is half the battle! Andromada101 00:12, February 4, 2010 (UTC)

It's a series of tubes.

Vacuum tubes, that is. They're more or less immune to EMP. Skorpychan 05:51, February 7, 2010 (UTC)

While you bring up a good point about a devastating EMP resulting from nuclear holocaust, remember that the Fallout universe separated from reality around 1950. In actuality, the very first nuclear bomb test was in 1945, and scientists had alerady deduced that an EMP was to be expected from a nuclear explosion. One would think that if the U.S. had over 100 years (1945 - 2067) to adapt circuitry and electronics to be safe from being permanently fried, they would - Especially during the whole pre-war era with China and what not. Ghouly89 05:52, February 10, 2010 (UTC)

Sure,one would think. But here we are, 65 years from then, and it's still a pretty major concern in this world. Maybe that has to do more with our world undergoing somewhat of a nuclear disarmament (Sort of). But, EMP can be generated without a nuclear weapon and it's still considered a fairly high-threat weapon by itself, even though we've known about the effects of high energy fields on electronic circuits since they were first devised. I'm sure military outposts and fallout shelters would be fitted with protection, but I don't think any civilian computers or electronic devices would be usable. Just a thought, though. Metalfrenchtoast 17:05, February 13, 2010 (UTC)