We’ve been doing managed IT since 1995, so October always makes us a bit nostalgic. It’s been a big month in computing over the years: the internet’s very first message, the iPod, and no fewer than three versions of Windows all arrived in an October. Here are the highlights.
29 October 1969: the internet’s first word was “lo”
Late in the evening of 29 October 1969, UCLA student programmer Charley Kline (supervised by Professor Leonard Kleinrock) tried to log in to a computer at the Stanford Research Institute over the brand-new ARPANET. Bill Duvall was waiting at the other end.
Kline typed “login”. The “l” got through. The “o” got through. Then the computer at SRI crashed. So the first message ever sent across the network that grew into the internet was simply “lo”, as in “lo and behold”. They got the full login working about an hour later.
If you’ve ever been part of a rollout that didn’t go to plan, take heart. The very first test of the internet fell over too, and the fix was a settings change!
23 October 2001: 1,000 songs in your pocket
Apple announced the iPod on 23 October 2001. It had a 5GB hard drive, held up to 1,000 songs and cost US$399. Steve Jobs said listening to music would never be the same again, and he was right. The original line (later called the iPod Classic) kept going until Apple finally retired it in September 2014.
25 October 2001: Windows XP
Just two days later, Windows XP went on sale. Microsoft had marked its release to manufacturing a couple of months earlier by flying copies off its Redmond campus to PC makers by helicopter. XP turned out to be a stayer: extended support didn’t finish until April 2014, more than twelve years after launch. (We supported more than a few XP machines well past their use-by date!)
22 October 2009: Windows 7
Windows 7 became generally available on 22 October 2009 and sold more than 100 million copies in around six months, the fastest-selling Microsoft operating system at the time. Extended support ended in January 2020, with paid Extended Security Updates available to businesses until January 2023.
5 October 2021: Windows 11
Windows 11 arrived on 5 October 2021 as a free upgrade for eligible Windows 10 PCs. “Eligible” was the catch. It needed TPM 2.0, Secure Boot and a fairly recent processor, which ruled out a lot of perfectly good machines. Take-up was slow: Windows 11 didn’t overtake Windows 10 worldwide until July 2025, and a lot of that came from businesses upgrading just before Windows 10 support ended in October 2025.
The lesson from 56 years of Octobers
Every one of these milestones eventually became something that needed replacing, patching or retiring. The technology changes, but the job of keeping it secure and up to date never goes away. That’s what we’ve been helping New Zealand businesses with for more than 30 years.
Still running something that should have been retired years ago? Book a free health check, or call us on 0800 688 768.