Dreams

From the January 24, 1963 issue of Time:

"It is 14 years since the first Polaroid cameras began developing and printing their own black-and-white snapshots in a matter of seconds. Though photographers have been yearning ever since for someone to produce an equally swift, self-processing color film, most chemists agreed that the job was incredibly difficult. It seemed improbable that it would ever be accomplished.

"But the very complexity of the problem was what appealed most to Dr. Edwin H. Land and his colleagues at the Polaroid Corp. in Cambridge, Mass. This week they began to market the improbable. Polacolor, a self-processing color film. Now, just 50 seconds after the snap of a shutter, a surgeon can record a sharp color shot of a delicate operation; an alert military reconnaissance pilot can produce a revealing picture of an enemy operation; a doting parent can turn out a portrait of his child in remarkably accurate tints.
...

"Among the big users of Polacolor will be industrial and scientific laboratories, which often need to take quick color shots of a fleeting stage in a process or experiment. But of all Polacolor's potential users, it is the military from whom Chemist Land may get his largest orders. The ability to photograph the enemy in color and see the picture almost immediately will be of enormous advantage in many dangerous situations. No enemy of the U.S. is likely to enjoy this advantage for years; in spite of frantic efforts, says Land, the Russians have not yet succeeded in copying even black-and-white Polaroid film."

Polaroid was the choice for instant photos up until the 1990s.  Since then the digital camera has taken over.  But back in the mid-60s, and instant color photo was a dream, and as the story says, it accomplishment was highly improbable.

But accomplished it was.  As was the electronic calculator, which replaced the slide rule, and so many other technological wonders that were not even dreamed of then.