Say what you will about Compaq, Grid and others, actually seeing a running Metaphor Computer System in production was the same as time travel to the future.

Standing in a room full of text-based devices in 1985 and looking at Metaphor's graphical interface, wireless keyboard and mouse, ethernet backbone, laser printers, and folder-based O/S was stunning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor_Computer_Systems

http://www.johnweeks.com/tour/metaphor/

http://www.johnweeks.com/tour/metaphor/slideshow.html