To PAUSE on KEY? or not

The documentation does not imply whether KEY? should (by standard) do a
PAUSE . I think that it is not technically an I/O in the normal sense
because it does not and will never wait for anything. The information it
needs is readily available. Though many implementations of KEY? do have
PAUSE I would like more confidence that code like this "BEGIN KEY? UNTIL" is
portable, or whether one should explicitly write "BEGIN PAUSE KEY? UNTIL" .
I know of an example in the SwiftX kernel where it does not PAUSE .

SwiftX.pdf, 5.2 PRINCIPLES OF OPERATION, 5.2.1 Task-Scheduling Algorithm,
"Most words performing asynchronous hardware operations (e.g., TYPE, ACCEPT)
contain a WAIT or a jump to PAUSE so, while a task is waiting for an I/O
operation to be completed, other tasks can use the CPU."
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Received on Mon Mar 06 2006 - 05:47:08 PST