In 1997 my Comp Sci undergrad dissertation was on the '3D desktop'. The C++ code I wrote for my demo did software 2D on svgalib on the Linux console (there was some way to get a high res mode, I don't remember what exactly).

I didn't have video or semi-transparency, but I'd gone for a similar idea of clearing windows out of the way - sitting at angles on the sides of the screen.

I realised too late that what I really wanted wasn't 3D, but documents as first class citizens, with modular tools working on documents rather than monolithic applications.

If you clicked on a file icon it would graphically 'open' the file and bring it to the foreground for viewing, then you'd bring tools to it - for example, you'd have application-agnostic text tools for text editing.

I started adding things like 'filters' - where you'd drop a file on a filter icon and it would be animated going through the filter and dropping onto the 'desktop' underneath - e.g. you would be able to apply troff+pic and get a diagram.

It was all naive and probably based on ideas that others were having and I'd seen around (e.g. articles about OS/2), but it was enjoyable discovering more and more ideas as I dug further. My real inspiration was, I believe, TkDesk, which wowed me when I saw I could edit the functionality of my desktop /on the fly/.

What we have in modern desktop environments is great, so I'm a bit sad that the idea of a powerful desktop environment seems to never have taken off as far as some of us hoped was possible. Maybe it just doesn't work!

Anyway, back to the command line...