Given that FORTRAN was not even widely available until 1957, this strikes me as a little unlikely.

But yeah, I'd say the wheel is the real giveaway.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/computer.asp

But fun!

The best part about it is actually the typography in the caption--very vintage looking and convincing, as is the multi-sentence format.

It's a hoax, an image that was circulated around the Internet after a clever posting in a FARK photoshop contest--Popular Mechanics addresses the issue here:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/computers/2004/12/hoax/

To put on my textual studies beanie for a moment, and look only at the caption: Even if you did convince me that Fortran (invented in 1954 at IBM but not released commercially until years later) was going to be mentioned in a popular magazine article in 1954, I'd a lot of trouble believing that it would be typeset as "Fortran" rather than "FORTRAN," as it consistently was for decades afterwards and often still is. Also, I would think that "teletype" would be at least be capitalized, and maybe used with another word, as the Teletype Corporation was well-known in those days at it would be obvious that "Teletype" was a trade name.

I smelled a rat after the solecism of "how a 'home computer' could look like" vs "what a 'home computer' could look like".

The teletype in the foreground is OBVIOUSLY too new -- it's 1970's vintage. The model 33 (introduced ten years after this picture) still had roll-feed paper, cylindrical keys, and no caps.

And the socks the "scientist" is wearing use a stitch that was not widely known outside of East Timor until the early nineties.

This one resurfaced a little while ago.

The first tip-off for me was that the caption text was so loosely written.

Two of the four sentences are subordinate clauses, there are no hyphens in "not yet invented," and there's a split infinitive ("to actually work").

As for the sock sitches... is this the latest in digital image analysis -- the ability to see through the caption text that has been superimposed upon Clarence the "It's a Wonderful Life" Angel's feet?

And the socks the "scientist" is wearing use a stitch that was not widely known outside of East Timor until the early nineties.

LOLOL.