There are a couple screenshots on Wikipedia's Ultima VII page, as well as links to pages for the other games in the series.
Briefly, Ultima VII was a DOS based, top down perspective RPG released in 92, developed by Origin Systems. Graphics were pretty good for the time (actually they are pretty impressive considering the game was first released on 5.25" floppies <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> ). The game world was very interactive, and the story non-linear.

I played at least part IV on the original Nintendo. If I can find it at a reasonable price I would get the collection (I - VIII) for the earlier games (already have VII and VIII).