You may want to take at a look at Term::ReadKey from CPAN. From the docs:

The terminal mode function is controlled by the "ReadMode" function, which takes a single numeric argument, and an optional filehandle. This argument should be one of the following:

• 0: (Reset) Restore original settings.
• 1: (Cooked) Change to what is commonly the default mode, echo on, buffered, signals enabled, Xon/Xoff possibly enabled, and 8-bit mode possibly disabled.
• 2: (Cooked-Invisible) Same as 1, just with echo off. Nice for reading passwords.
• 3: (CBreak) Echo off, unbuffered, signals enabled, Xon/Xoff possibly enabled, and 8-bit mode possibly enabled.
• 4: (Raw) Echo off, unbuffered, signals disabled, Xon/Xoff disabled, and 8-bit mode possibly disabled.
• 5: (Really-Raw) Echo off, unbuffered, signals disabled, Xon/Xoff disabled, 8-bit mode enabled if parity permits, and CR to CR/LF translation turned off.

I didn't try it out, but it looks to be exactly what you need.

djw