[Tutor] A little help please

[nova812]

I'm in need of a function that will work on both a linux box and a 
windows box that,
from the command line, will detect a key hit on the keyboard.  the 
function should return
-1 for no key hit detected and the ascii code for any other key hit.  I 
realize the limitation
of this function would be function keys.  But something this simple( to 
use, maybe not to
write) would really be handy for me.  Will any one help me write this or 
perhaps tell me what I
need to study to make this happen??  I need this function to work 
'command line'.  Gui programming
won't be helpfull for this project.

Ron