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From: mark@zach.fit.edu ( Mark R. Craig)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Checking for a Keystroke (in C)
Message-ID: <2676@winnie.fit.edu>
Date: 20 Jun 91 03:34:43 GMT
References: <1991Jun19.131033.14578@schaefer.math.wisc.edu>
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Reply-To: mark@zach.UUCP ( Mark R. Craig)
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Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL
Lines: 36

In article <1991Jun19.131033.14578@schaefer.math.wisc.edu> mueller@math.wisc.edu writes:
 >This question probably will require a somewhat lengthy answer.  I hope that
 >someone out there will take the time.
 >
 >I have the SAS/C compiler for the AMIGA and I want to write a routine that
 >I can call that will check for a keypress.  If a key is being pressed, I want
 >the routine to report the key being pressed.  If not I want it to return -1
 >or some such thing.  Can anyone tell me how to do this (or direct me to some
 >source code that does this)?  I have a feeling that I'm going to have to use
 >the keyboard device or the input device or the console device.  If so, I'm
 >really going to need some help getting started.
 >
 >Thanks much in advance.
 >
 >Carl Mueller (mueller@math.wisc.edu)

I would be VERY interested in such code!  I would think that there would be
a system register that contains the keypress (a buffer perhaps) that could
be scanned.  I know on UNIX the solution would be an ioctl call (do a
read with FIONREAD flag or something like that (I forget the exact call)) -
it worked like a charm.  
   On a similar topic, I originally used a lot of overhead stuff for reading
the joystick (OpenPort, etc.)...then after looking at an old Amiga World, I
replaced all that stuff (I'm holding back on saying garbage - don't want
to get flamed by real gurus :-) ) with about 8 or so lines of code.  One 
problem with this method is that it doesn't buffer joystick responses - but
that's what I wanted anyways....

Hope someone comes up with an easy way of doing the keyboard scan! 

Mark


Mark R. Craig
Internet:  mark@zach.fit.edu
UUCP:      ...!winnie!zach!mark