Publish Date: April 2, 1965
Cover Story: The Cybernated Generation
How TIME Covered the News: In only the second TIME cover story to focus on computers (the first being a 1950 cover that featured the Harvard Mark III), TIME chronicled the rise of computers in everyday society. Between the mid-1940s and the early 1960s, the number of computers in use rose from 100 to more than 22,000, and their use became widespread in the areas of medicine and research.
“The computer already has been put to work at more than 700 specific tasks, both mundane and exotic, from bookkeeping to monitoring underground nuclear explosions. Computers control the flow of electric current for much of the nation, route long-distance telephone calls, set newspaper type, even dictate just how sausage is made. They navigate ships and planes, mix cakes and cement, prepare weather forecasts, check income tax returns, direct city traffic and diagnose human—and machine—ailments.”