Hello David--

    On 11-24-95, I posted a message to you that included the following
query:

> Technical question:  I have been unable to find a PL/I construct
> equivalent to the REXX CHARIN() (e.g., no  required), other than
> to build one from the KBDCharin() API call.  Any suggestions?

    I must have been suffering from too much travel when I wrote it.
Obviously, a PL/I equivalent to CHARIN is REPLY.  What I should have
been asking for is the PL/I equivalent of _getch; I want to block on the
keyboard until a character is entered, then read that character.

    The following is a code fragment I used to test multithreading:

..... test1.pli starts on next line....
 test1: proc options (main);
 dcl X char(80) var;   /* dummy variable, just to capture  */
 dcl TI1 TASK;
 attach Blooper THREAD (TI1);
 display ('');
 display ('     Press ENTER to stop beeping') REPLY (X);
 detach THREAD (TI1);
 exit;

 Blooper: entry () OPTIONS (LINKAGE(SYSTEM));
 dcl DosBeep entry (
                    unsigned bin fixed(31),
                    unsigned bin fixed(31))
                    RETURNS(bin fixed(31) optional)
                    OPTIONS (LINKAGE(SYSTEM) NODESCRIPTOR BYVALUE);

  do loop;
      call DosBeep(523,500);
      delay(500);
  end;
 end test1;
.....test1.pli ends on previous line

    What I want to do is replace the message "Press ENTER to stop
beeping" with "press any key to stop beeping" and have it work
correctly!   Among other problems, I am producing beaucoup error
messages when I try to call DosBeep by including OS2.CPY instead of
having the prototype in the program.  Which means that I will have much
trouble building the equivalent to _getch from KBDCharin, also.

    Any suggestions?

    Thanks, chief.

          --Murray

___
 * MR/2 2.25 #120 * Never send a PM program to do a text-mode job
                                                              
---