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The heart of the Metaphor DIS system was the Capsule. Basically, a capsule was a simplified BATCH program. Because Metaphor applications were built so they communicated with each other, they could be moved into a folder and automated in a "Capsule". (The name was taken from the manned space capsules of the time.)
The functionality of the Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Data Retrieval tools were no better than their Microsoft Office counterparts (in fact, they had a smaller sub-set of features than Office). The primary advantage of Metaphor's system was the degree to which applications were linked together. Complex reiterative data-retrieval jobs were able to be created on-the-fly by a user with no programming knowledge.<ref name=Metaphor.IBM>{{cite web
|url=https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?appname=skmwww%26htmlfid=897%252FENUS490-130%26infotype=AN%26subtype=CA%26mhsrc=ibmsearch_a%26mhq=examining
|title=New Data Interpreation System Courses}}</ref>
A user could visually drag fields from multiple databases into the Data Retrieval tool (which would generate its own SQL code based on the fields, links and criteria displayed) and send the output directly into a spreadsheet for sorting, calculations, and graphs. The report could then be sent into a pre-formatted Word Processing document, sent to the printer, and even e-mailed to a pre-designated distribution list. The whole process would repeat for each SKU, Region, Price Code, etc. without any human interaction.
<!--- was the following written before AS/400? -->
<!--- Even in today's GUI designs, this abstract conception of the desktop has never been attempted because it requires the interoperation of every application, a uniform dataflow model, and a communication protocol usable by a supervisor in a programmatic way. -->
===Meta5===
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