History of Technology on Locodigital

Windows XP Turns 25: The Security Lesson It Left Behind

Sun, 25 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0300

Today, October 25, 2026, it has been 25 years since Windows XP reached stores. Anyone who owned a PC in the 2000s remembers the green Bliss hills, the blue Start menu and the activation screen. Fewer people remember that XP was also the system where Microsoft learned the hard way that a Windows machine plugged straight into the internet needs a firewall switched on out of the box.

What was Windows XP?

According to Wikipedia, XP was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001 and reached general availability on October 25, 2001. It merged Microsoft's two lines: the consumer one, which came from Windows 95 and ended with Windows ME, and the professional one, built on the Windows NT kernel.

Venera 4 Turns 59: The Probe That Sampled the Air of Venus

Sun, 18 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0300

Today, October 18, 2026, it has been 59 years since a 383 kg Soviet capsule hit the atmosphere of Venus at roughly 300 G of deceleration, opened a parachute and spent 93 minutes sending numbers back to Earth. Venera 4 did not reach the ground in one piece, but it returned the first analysis made from inside another planet's atmosphere.

What was Venera 4?

It was a probe launched on June 12, 1967, from Baikonur, on a Molniya rocket. According to Wikipedia, the stack weighed 1,106 kg at launch: a spacecraft with solar panels and, attached to it, a nearly spherical capsule 1 meter in diameter. The trip took 127 days. Only one course correction was made, on July 29; the second one, planned, was canceled.

Apollo 7 Turns 58: The Test Flight That Led to the Moon

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0300

Today, October 11, 2026, it has been 58 years since a Saturn IB rocket left Cape Kennedy with three men inside a capsule that had only flown uncrewed until then. Apollo 7 did not land on the Moon, fly around it, or even get close. Even so, without it nothing that came later would have happened.

What was Apollo 7?

It was the first crewed flight of the Apollo program and an engineering test in Earth orbit. According to NASA, it launched on October 11, 1968, from Launch Complex 34, and the spacecraft (Spacecraft 101) splashed down on October 22 in the Atlantic, southeast of Bermuda.

Sputnik Turns 69: The Beep That Led to ARPA and the Internet

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0300

Today, October 4, 2026, it has been 69 years since an aluminum ball about the size of a small beach ball started beeping over everyone's heads. It had no camera and no sensors, and it did nothing but say "beep". Even so, Sputnik 1 changed US politics, education and technology within a few months — and one of the consequences is the network you are using right now.

What Sputnik 1 was

Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957, at 19:28 UTC, from Tyuratam in the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan (today's Baikonur Cosmodrome). The rocket was a variant of the R-7, the same intercontinental ballistic missile the Soviet Union had been developing. According to NASA and the program's own history, the satellite was an aluminum-alloy sphere 58 cm in diameter and weighing 83.6 kg, with four long antennas sticking out of the body.