Virtual Console, sometimes abbreviated as VC, is a specialized section of the Wii Shop Channel, an online service that allows players to purchase and download games and other software for the Wii gaming console. The Virtual Console lineup consists of titles originally released on now defunct past consoles. These titles are run in their original forms through software emulation. The library of past games currently consists of titles originating from the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and Nintendo 64, as well as Sega's Mega Drive/Genesis, NEC's TurboGrafx-16 and TurboGrafx-CD, and SNK's Neo Geo AES. Upcoming support for MSX has been announced for Japan. It has also been confirmed that games for Sega Master System and Game Gear will be added under the Master System label starting in February. In addition, Commodore 64 games have been confirmed to be added to the Virtual Console very soon in Europe.
Over ten million Virtual Console titles have been downloaded through December 2007.
In some operating systems such as UnixWare, Linux and BSD, a virtual console (VC, sometimes virtual terminal, VT) is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and the display for a user interface. The concrete combination is the system console of the computer, where the user can switch between the virtual consoles to access multiple unrelated user interfaces. Usually in Linux, the first six virtual consoles provide a text terminal with a login prompt to a unix shell. The graphical X Window System starts in the seventh virtual console.
In Linux, the switching is performed with a key combination of Alt plus a function key -- for example Alt+F1 to access the virtual console number 1. Alt+Left arrow changes to the previous virtual console and Alt+Right arrow to the next virtual console. To switch from the X Window System, Ctrl+Alt+function key works. These are the default key combinations, as they can be redefined.
The need for virtual consoles has lessened now that most applications work in the graphical framework of the X Window System, where each program has a window and the text mode programs can be run in terminal emulator windows. Several X sessions might be desired though, such as in the case of fast user switching or when debugging X programs from another X server, and in those cases each X session runs in a separate virtual console. GNU Screen is a program that can change between several text-mode programs in one textual login. There are also other graphical frameworks such as FrameBuffer UI, Y Window System, and Fresco.
