You could set $/ to a reference to an integer, and then you'd read that many bytes at a time with the standard <FH> syntax.

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a job (NYC-area)
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;