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This is not a C issue; it's the Unix I/O system (and specifically, terminal I/O).
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One can suppress all this; there's a mode call 'raw'
Just be sure to turn raw mode off so canonization is performed again after your program stops running. Remember this a 'system wide' settings for that try and all programs start to use that setting. So if some reason, your program stops and a new program (like the shell) takes back over input from the try, if you do not have a way to get it back you are screwed.
Back in the day, I have a shell script in my path stored in ~/.bin called: ft (fix tty) which called the stty command with the way I wanted the terminal to be set up. Thus is I was running a program that core dumped and left the try in raw mode, if I could find a way to run the ft script (usually by typing ^Jft^J ) life was good again. Paul, as an exercise why would ft<CR> not be good enough? (hint read and study the section 4 man page for stty)
FWIW: is how the original UCB ex/vi and Cornell's Fred editors for v6 works by the way. I suspect that iyou look at any of the video editors of the day it will show you the details.
One of the differences between V7 and earlier UNIX tty handlers was that they tty canonization was split into multiple parts. Also the other hint with Sixthedition's version of raw and cooked modes, you get all or nothing so you if you turn on raw, your program, will have do things like backspace processing, etc..