Derived from Joseph jixiuf@gmail.com (URL: http://www.emacswiki.org/term-toggle.el), this plugin brings up a quake-style console with commands term-toggle{,-cd} The major difference with Joseph's version is that maximized console feature is removed (in the original version sometimes it gets stuck in maximized state, possibly because the window configuration is corrupted). Also, this plugin determines whether to split a new window for the console, or replace the buffer of current selected window if height is not enough for a split. Another feature is that this plugin will detect the status of the terminal. When there's no process running in terminal buffer, it will fire up another one.
Installation:
git clone it, and setup instruction is in the source file.