CM> simply have the DosRead return
 CM> only when there's a character.  It just smacks 
   ...
 CM> Is there another way?

 DL> The following function will return the number of 
 DL> bytes in the input buffer. Keep on calling in_ready 
 DL> until you read a non-zero value, then read the 
 DL> character.
 
     That's exactly what Chris is trying to get away from - busy waiting.
What he's looking for is a way to disable timeouts (i.e. an infinite
timeout) so that he doesn't need to occasionally spend processor time when
there's no input arriving (i.e. after sucessive timeouts). What you're
suggesting wastes cpu time - spinning in a loop calling in_ready while
nothing is being done is a bad thing to do: it robs other threads/tasks of
processor time, and severly affects performance.

--- Maximus/2 2.01