[comp.sys.ibm.pc] PC keyboard vs stdin

nather@ut-sally.UUCP (Ed Nather) (09/15/87)

I'm trying to write a C program for the IBM PC that will accept output
from a pipe via "stdin" and still wait for keyboard characters at the
proper spot in the program.  I've tried several things, including direct
DOS system calls, all without success.  Characters from the stdin stream
are accepted as keyboard characters, and the desired pause doesn't happen.
The closest I came was this:

open "con" as an input stream separate from stdin
accept input from that stream as keyboard input

This worked, except that the input was buffered; to be useful, the
keyboard input must be unechoed and unbuffered.  Using Microsoft C 4.0,
I tried to insist, via setvbuf(), that the "con" stream be treated as
unbuffered, but that was ignored.

If anybody can tell me, via e-mail, how to do this, I'd be very grateful.

Ed Nather
Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
{allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather
nather@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU
-- 
Ed Nather
Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
{allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather
nather@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU