Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!ames!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!sco!seanf
From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: printf, data presentation
Message-ID: <2034@scolex>
Date: 9 Jan 89 12:53:47 GMT
References: <19@xenlink.UUCP> <225800106@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: seanf@scolex.UUCP (Sean Fagan)
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Lines: 22

In article <225800106@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
[about inkey()]
>The important point is that some such function should be a
>STANDARD C (ANSI C) function, not an operating system dependent
>kludge. It is obviously too late to get it done right this time
>around, but next time .... PLEASE!

It's kind of hard to make in OS independent when there are some operating
systems that just *cannot* do the type of thing you want, or have so much
overhead in doing it that it's not worth it.  For example, NOS on a CDC
Cyber 170-state machine:  to do I/O, you normally tell a peripheral
processor, which swaps you out of main memory until it has a line of TTY
input, at which point it rolls you back into memory, with the line
automagically put into your buffer.  To do what inkey$ in BASIC does, you
would need single-character I/O, which "normal" users cannot get in NOS.

And, yes, there are at least 2 C compilers for NOS, so it is an issue.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "Merry Christmas, drive carefully and have some great sex."
seanf@sco.UUCP   |     -- Art Hoppe
(408) 458-1422   | Any opinions expressed are my own, not my employers'.