Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!super!udel!rochester!rutgers!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!madnix!aaron
From: aaron@madnix.UUCP (Aaron Avery)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Non-blocking keyboard reads
Message-ID: <406@madnix.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jan 89 11:01:20 GMT
References: <1004@husc6.harvard.edu>
Reply-To: aaron@madnix.UUCP (Aaron Avery)
Organization: ASDG Incorporated
Lines: 24

In article <1004@husc6.harvard.edu> wen@husc4.UUCP (A. Wen) writes:
>That is, if I am waiting for the timer to wake me up, but I need to be notified
>of any keystrokes that may occur in the meantime, is there anything simple
>(short of busy-waiting) that I can do?

Absolutely. You arrange for the timer message to come into one message port
which has its own sigbit, and you arrange for the keyboard message to come
in a different port, which has its own different sigbit. There are many ways
to arrange for those keyboard messages, too. One would be accessing the
console.device directly. Also, you can use the keyboard.device, or intuition's
RAWKEY events coming into an IDCMP port.

Now, you need to wait for these signals. You want to use the Exec function
Wait(). It takes a single argument which is a signal mask, indicating all of
the sigbits you want to be awakened for. When Wait() returns, it returns a
mask of all signals to which you're responding, by which you can tell why
you were awakened. For a better description, please look up Wait() in your
nearest Rom Kernel Manual.

-- 
Aaron Avery, ASDG Inc.         "A mime is a terrible thing to waste."
                                                             -- Robin Williams
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