TERM::ReadKey -- problem

okay, i have a perl script that sends a text file as serial data records out an I/O port at variable baudrates, etc..  
 
I need to have a way to interrupt the data transmission *cleanly* (not via CTRL-C), so that the current data string completes to the next CR/LF terminator before stopping.
 
therefore, i need some sort of unbuffered input so the program can check whether a character has been pressed (say, the ESC key), and stops the program, otherwise it will carry on normally.
 
Problem is, I'm using a Windows XP box here at work.   ive built the perl from source, not using binaries.   
 
I havent been able to get the getc() function to work as i wanted; i dont have stty.  cygwin is not an option as this is going to be used by other windows users who just point to my perl build on a networked drive.
 
I have found what i think is what I need:  The TERM::ReadKey module and/or the TERM::GetKey module (which depends on ReadKey)
 
problem is, i can not compile the TERM::ReadKey from source.  whoever wrote it thought that Microsoft's Visual C++ was a good build environment.  Since I don't have Visual C++, my nmake always fails at the cl.exe command.  I tried spoofing it to my c++.exe and removing some switches, but then it fails on the link.exe command.  I am not a C++ programmer, so now I'm stuck.
 
can anyone help me out?  Is there a better way to solve my original problem?
 
thanks
 
Jez
 
 
 

		
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