In 1992 when I started my study in Astronomy, most students at the physics department were using X-terminals. Workstations were still fairly expensive then and had more power than any one person needed (on average). The X-terminal was a fairly dumb device. It had an X server for graphical representation and tftp client for booting. They worked very well in combination with UNIX servers.
Some consultants would you believe that virtualisation technology will solve all your desktop problems.... Yeah, right!