/dev/vc/* and console problems

[zumo]

I'm not sure whether to post this here or on Hardware/laptops, but here goes...

My symptoms include this:

Couldnt get a file descriptor referring to the console
/sbin/runscript.sh: line 61: /dev/vc/1: Permission denied
/sbin/runscript.sh: line 61: /dev/vc/2: Permission denied
/sbin/runscript.sh: line 61: /dev/vc/3: Permission denied
/sbin/runscript.sh: line 61: /dev/vc/4: Permission denied
/sbin/runscript.sh: line 61: /dev/vc/5: Permission denied
/sbin/runscript.sh: line 61: /dev/vc/6: Permission denied
/sbin/runscript.sh: line 61: /dev/vc/7: Permission denied
/sbin/runscript.sh: line 61: /dev/vc/8: Permission denied
/sbin/runscript.sh: line 61: /dev/vc/9: Permission denied
/sbin/runscript.sh: line 61: /dev/vc/10: Permission denied

on the console during bootup between the lines
"*ing /tmp directory" and
"*d to set user font"
(There are asterisks in front because my console doesn't interpret those nice colors and stuff correctly so the '[ ok ]' symbol line feeds w/o carriage returning thus wiping out the beginning part of the message)

Anyway, what is this /dev/vc/* stuff?

My hardware configuration is kinda wierd, it is as follows:

Technologic Systems TS5500
AMD K5
32MB RAM
Davicom 10/100BT
CF Flash as /dev/hda (which contains only a bootloader and kernel, which then boots nfs as it's root filesystem)
no vga out (console has been redirected to /dev/ttyS1)

Hope that helps! Much thanks from a n00b.