44 Years Ago In Time

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The early 1960s, after a postwar decade of industrial enterprise, were another boom time for INVENTIONS. As will no doubt be true of the current crop, some consumer goods had more staying power than others, as this TIME cover shows.

The outpouring of new products and processes is a rich harvest [including] ... Can opener-less cans. Now being test-marketed by Alcoa, the new aluminum orange juice cans have tabbed tops that peel away with a twist of the thumb ... Paper clothes. High-style paper clothes that can be thrown away after a few wearings ... A pocket-size portable record player. Put on sale by Emerson, the Wondergram plays all sizes of LP records without a turntable, is powered by four flashlight batteries, [and] weighs less than 2 lbs. ... A language- translating computer. Built by IBM, it translates Russian into English. Its first assignment: translating each day's Pravda for the Air Force. It works at a rate of 1,800 words per minute, turns out rough but readable English ... The pace of research is such that man's next great discovery may come next month, next week — or tomorrow.

--TIME, Sept. 19, 1960