Although the 1980s saw significant growth in the numbers of PCs for business use, the wider consumer market in the UK was relatively untouched with only 20% of households owning a computer by 1990. It has been suggested that the creative use of computers will only be maximised if users no longer have to remember consciously the commands necessary to use the system. Research is being carried out, under the name 'ubiquitous computing', to integrate computers seamlessly into people's lives, thus dispensing with any need to become computer literate. Computer terminals would be supplied with 'nodes' of an information network varying in size from small 'tabs' to A4 sized 'pads' and finally to 'boards'. The tabs would be used as 'post-it' type notes. pads as notebooks and boards would fulfil the function of a whiteboard or flip-chart. The development of these metaphors have arisen, in part, from the researchers' observations of people at home and work. The major problem with these concepts is that conventional operating systems assume that the network configuration remains constant but ubiquitous computing assumes the location of any of the tabs, pads or boards is variable so that information may be retrieved at any convenient location.