And at a time when many men attended the fair in coat and tie and women in dresses, people weren't quite ready to be seen on the phone at any hour in any attire.

"We were still a little more of a formal society," Walters said.

The fair also gave wide exposure to the power of computers, which at the time were seen as huge cabinets of blinking lights and electrodes operated by big corporations.

At the IBM pavilion, visitors saw a computer system in which a machine took in a card with a date written on it and gave back another card with a news story from that date. At the NCR pavilion, a computer would answer scientific questions or give out recipes from a cookbook.

Asking a computer for information? Now we Google.

"I don't think it's a stretch to say in a lot of ways this fair was key to familiarising people with and really normalising the concept of working with computers," said Ryan Ritchey, a Philadelphia filmmaker who is making a documentary about the fair.

Another bit of technology was introduced by Walt Disney with the "It's a Small World" attraction: robotic animation.

That "animatronic" exhibit and three others, including one featuring a robotic president Abraham Lincoln, showed characters moving in life-like ways, including smiling and blinking.

"This is the first time that millions of people had the opportunity to see something that could be described as robotic. The special effects you could see in the World's Fair blew away what you could see in the movies," said Joseph Tirella, author of a book about the fair.

Of course, not everything came to pass, as seen in some of the views of the future in the "Futurama 2" ride put together by General Motors. It included scenes of colonies on the moon as well as in Antarctica, huge underwater dwellings and a machine that used a laser to cut through rainforests, leaving behind paved roads.

And don't forget the jet packs, demonstrated by men who wore them and zoomed around the grounds, but which remain a mode of transport found primarily in science fiction.

Regardless of whether such notions survived, observers say the fair offered a vision of the world's potential that made it seem like anything was possible.

"It really seems like 50 years ago, we had more exciting visions for 50 years in the future than we do now," Ritchey said.

A look at predictions of the 1964 World's Fair

• "Picturephone": Bell System introduced this innovation, which allowed people to see whom they were calling. It didn't go over well at the time, but it's a concept that's an everyday part of our lives now in apps such as Skype and FaceTime.
• Personal use of the computer: Several pavilions had exhibits where visitors could ask computers for information and get responses in seconds.
• Robotics: Walt Disney's It's a Small World exhibit introduced robotic animation in which characters sing, speak and make life-like gestures such as smiles and blinks. It's still in use in theme parks and movies today.
• Ford Mustang: The two-seater sports car with its long hood and short rear deck was officially unveiled at the World's Fair and immediately became popular. It has remained in production ever since.
• Touch-tone phones: Originally introduced at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, this was still the first time many visitors were exposed to this technology.

• Colonies on the moon, underwater and in Antarctica: The Futurama 2 ride from General Motors, which featured images of people living in places where they clearly don't.
• Paved-over rainforests: Another image from Futurama 2 featured a machine that used a laser to cut through the rain forests and left behind paved roads.
• Jet packs: There were demonstrations of jet-pack power at the fair, with men wearing them and zooming around the grounds. Sadly, they remain a mode of transport found mainly in science fiction.