ReadKey like Function in C

[Steve Summit]

In article <13446 at bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> I wrote:
>...the astonishing frequency with which this
>question arises indicates that the opportunity is
>ripe for some kind of informal, community-"standard" solution.

In article <1989Aug13.004829.28322 at utzoo.uucp> henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>I strongly suggest that you read IEEE standard 1003.1, i.e. POSIX, before
>re-inventing the wheel pointlessly.  POSIX compliance will be widespread
>in the very near future, so the POSIX approach will automatically be
>*far* more widespread than any "community 'standard'" approach.

I agree (in fact I have a copy of 1003.1 right here on my desk)
and I'll start using its facilities as soon as they become
available on machines I use, but in the meantime, and for non-Unix
systems such as VMS and MS-DOS, I'd like to have a carrot to toss
to the people who keep asking for getch() and kbhit(), in a
similar spirit to the getopt() routines which have been floating
around for years.

You're right, the time for a "community 'standard'" approach is
not exactly ripe, but more like waning.

                                            Steve Summit
                                            scs at adam.pika.mit.edu