NOVICE question: How to know when a key is pressed

[DEE Tomas Pihl]

Here comes a tricky question that I (the novice swede) can't solve.

I want to know how you can scan if a specific key has been pressed.
Just as this program I'm using know know that i press eg. ESC.
I don't want the pressed key to be echoed out to the screen as it is
with getchar().

Please, help me. 

-------------------
Tomas Pihl    E-mail: etxpihl at texas.ericsson.se