# File lib/sup/buffer.rb, line 33
  def nonblocking_getch
    ## INSANTIY
    ## it is NECESSARY to wrap Ncurses.getch in a select() otherwise all
    ## background threads will be BLOCKED. (except in very modern versions
    ## of libncurses-ruby. the current one on ubuntu seems to work well.)
    if IO.select([$stdin], nil, nil, 0.5)
      c = Ncurses.getch
    end
  end