How Fast is it Growing?

by Jim Brain

Reprinted from Commodore World Issue #6

The Internet's expansion has skyrocketed since the introduction of the NSFNET backbone, and doesn't show signs of stopping anytime soon. Here are some statistics on the growth of the Internet since its inception in 1969.

Year     Number of Machines
----     ------------------
1969                      4
1970                      7
1973                     25
1974                     62
1977                    111
1981                    213
1982                    235
1983                    562
1984                  1,024
1985                  1,961
1986                  5,089
1987                 28,174
1988                 56,000
1989                159,000
1990                313,000
1991                617,000
1992              1,136,000
1993              2,056,000
01/1994           2,217,000

Note: data collected after 1987 are estimates from collected figures.

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