It was 1983 or possibly 1984, near Cincinnati, OH (I've forgotten the month and day).
It was about 10:30 PM when we went to bed. She went straight to sleep. I had my own reading lamp, and was sitting in bed reading several computer related magazines. I was searching for available memory expansion boards for my new Tandy 1000 PC. I wanted a memory board capable of using the 640 bytes already installed on the motherboard and an additional 360 bytes of memory on a memory expansion card to achieve 1 Megabyte of main memory. Back then that was all a Intel 8088 CPU could address.
I was feeling excited about all the possibilities. Tandy had its own magazine, which was full of tips, tricks, and other better processors than the Intel 8088. I felt like a kid in a candy store with a 20 dollar bill..., using that kind of money to gorge myself on all kinds of candy.
I found what I think was a 2 speed V20 processor that was pin for pin compatible with the Intel chip. I had to have that! My computer was running at about 3.4 Megahertz, and the new chip would possibly run upwards of 8 Megahertz. So I was comparing prices in different magazines, for these different components. I kept going back and forth through these magazines asking myself which part I would order first, whether or not I should install a 3.5" disk drive, and a Seagate Hard drive. So many possibilities!
While I'm marking up my magazines and folding the corners for easy reading later, my wife suddenly rolled over (still asleep, eyes closed) and says something about what I should do first! And immediately rolls back over sound asleep.
My jaw just about hit the floor! It was like she could read my mind. I had to digest what just happened. I thought "she was reading my mind!" She doesn't know anything at all about computers, vendors or hardware, not even software. Then I thought, what if she could read my mind while I'm awake? Worse yet, what if she could read my mind while I'm asleep?
I was a little rattled by the experience. I apologize for not being more specific about what she said, but it was technical, and she had no knowledge of what she was talking about.
I was awake and thinking pretty hard, and she was dead asleep. Interesting configuration! Never tried to recreate the experience.
Incidentally, I purchased the "Dr.ZuckerBoard," that was livin' high on the hog!
I also purchased and installed an internal 1200 bps modem. Imagine the speed!
This memory makes me laugh, because there is no comparison with the computer I'm using now. And just several years ago I gave the whole system away to an older user who was still using his Tandy. I cleaned up the hard drive, and the system clock was still keeping the correct time, well past Y2K. Wasn't that a joke?!
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