She was most certainly real. Here's her Find a Grave memorial with a supporting news article, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/250277859/shirley-elizabeth-highfield , and the r/vintageads subreddit took a detailed look at her some time ago - https://www.reddit.com/r/vintageads/comments/18dxqu3/the_astonishing_mrs_highfield_for_rinsos_soap/
dparticiple
As an aside, I think my fifth grade teacher had those exact glasses. Very much of the era!
I don't recall ever computing with the monitor next to the CPU. Did anyone else, or was this an aesthetically pleasing way of setting up gear for ad photos?
PLATO is super cool. I highly recommend the book "The Friendly Orange Glow" for a review of the system and network (http://www.friendlyorangeglow.com/ ). It was hugely ahead of its time in many respects.
What's Skopje like as a place to live?
Super neat! I love the ornamentation that you designed for the case and keyboard. It's a bit like Blade Runner and Lord of the Rings had a love child...
Unfortunately this is no longer true. Matsumoto's paper, "Voyager Interstellar Mission: Challenges of Flying a Very Old Spacecraft on a Very Long Mission" notes that the full suite of system simulators were not retained beyond the prime mission due to reliability problems, loss of expertise, and a move. This makes the team's recent achievements even more impressive.
I had a couple, complete with the belt clip, which attracted derision from friends, but was unequalled in its convenience. Fantastic devices. I remember being amazed that I could ssh from a mobile device (and go on IRC!) and recall the agonizing wait for OTAs to roll out. Knowing a number of developers at Danger didn't help me get them any faster! I still have them in my museum of old mobile phones.
Enjoyed this thoroughly. I am especially glad to have this community in this age of AI.
This is a number of years old, but has helpful answers to the same question -- https://scubaboard.com/community/threads/computer-that-will-monitor-2-people.577876/ I am a Shearwater fan, but have not used the device in the scenario you described. I concur with the other commenter that teaching your kids monitoring discipline is a core scuba skill, along with agreeing on pressure callouts and reserve amounts during the pre-dive briefing.