A terminal for displaying application program information in a windowing environment comprising: processing means: which is adapted to receive windowing information supplied by programs executing on a remotely located application server and to provide windowing functionality to permit use of an application program resident on the server, without requiring, from the server, more than application data, and which is incapable of local execution of the application program; and display means for displaying the windowing information supplied by the programs executing on the remotely located application server, characterized in the terminal further comprising: means for simultaneously maintaining more than one connection between the terminal and server, wherein the means for simultaneously maintaining includes means for establishing more than one virtual machine on the terminal, each virtual machine running an open session, wherein each virtual machine is configured to have a text mode buffer so when the virtual machine is in a background it has a buffer that the virtual machine can write to and the virtual machine can continue to run in the background, and wherein each virtual machine is configured to send a signal to a graphics application, the application is configured to send a signal out to the server to command it to stop sending display when the application is switched to the background so that traffic relating to the graphics application between the terminal and server is stopped, and the server is configured to be commanded to redisplay a screen when the application is switched to a foreground. processing means: which is adapted to receive windowing information supplied by programs executing on a remotely located application server and to provide windowing functionality to permit use of an application program resident on the server, without requiring, from the server, more than application data, and which is incapable of local execution of the application program; and which is adapted to receive windowing information supplied by programs executing on a remotely located application server and to provide windowing functionality to permit use of an application program resident on the server, without requiring, from the server, more than application data, and which is incapable of local execution of the application program; and display means for displaying the windowing information supplied by the programs executing on the remotely located application server, characterized in the terminal further comprising: means for simultaneously maintaining more than one connection between the terminal and server, wherein the means for simultaneously maintaining includes means for establishing more than one virtual machine on the terminal, each virtual machine running an open session, wherein each virtual machine is configured to have a text mode buffer so when the virtual machine is in a background it has a buffer that the virtual machine can write to and the virtual machine can continue to run in the background, and wherein each virtual machine is configured to send a signal to a graphics application, the application is configured to send a signal out to the server to command it to stop sending display when the application is switched to the background so that traffic relating to the graphics application between the terminal and server is stopped, and the server is configured to be commanded to redisplay a screen when the application is switched to a foreground. means for simultaneously maintaining more than one connection between the terminal and server, wherein the means for simultaneously maintaining includes means for establishing more than one virtual machine on the terminal, each virtual machine running an open session, wherein each virtual machine is configured to have a text mode buffer so when the virtual machine is in a background it has a buffer that the virtual machine can write to and the virtual machine can continue to run in the background, and wherein each virtual machine is configured to send a signal to a graphics application, the application is configured to send a signal out to the server to command it to stop sending display when the application is switched to the background so that traffic relating to the graphics application between the terminal and server is stopped, and the server is configured to be commanded to redisplay a screen when the application is switched to a foreground.