This is extracted (with some rewording) from Computer terminal and virtual console, which has been closed with a hatnote linking to What is the exact difference between a 'terminal', a 'shell', a 'tty' and a 'console'?. Original poster was interested in relations and differences between a computer terminal and a virtual console/terminal. Which is dependent on the operating system? How is it related to text vs graphical terminals?Quoted from Wikipedia:A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware  device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from,  a computer or a computing system. Early terminals were inexpensive  devices but very slow compared to punched cards or paper tape for  input, but as the technology improved and video displays were  introduced, terminals pushed these older forms of interaction from the  industry. A related development was timesharing systems, which evolved  in parallel and made up for any inefficiencies of the user's typing  ability with the ability to support multiple users on the same  machine, each at their own terminal.Quoted from wikipedia:A virtual console (VC)  also known as a virtual terminal (VT)  is a  conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user  interface. It is a feature of some operating systems such as UnixWare,  Linux, and BSD, in which the system console of the computer can be  used to switch between multiple virtual consoles to access unrelated  user interfaces. Virtual consoles date back at least to Xenix in the  1980s.
How are virtual consoles related to traditional computer terminals?
terminal;console;tty