As 1985 and 1986 progressed, the ARPAnet got more loaded as more sites came on, but I don't have any specific statistics. Cross-country links like the one we had through Pittsburgh (CMU, PSN #14) were apparently the real hot spot.

BITnet was starting around then, too, mostly 9.6-19.2-56 kb links between IBM mainframes.

It's not important to your very interesting history, but I believe that BITNET started in 1981. It was already up to more than 1000 nodes when we joined in 1985 with a 56 kbps link to the University of Maryland. I remember many of the events you describe, but from the perspective of someone responsible for our connections. We got our SURAnet connection up in early 1988 with a Proteon p4200 and a T1 line. Roger Fajman Telephone: +1 301 402 4265 National Institutes of Health BITNET: RAF@NIHCU Bethesda, Maryland, USA Internet: RAF@CU.NIH.GOV