You need to put the terminal in raw mode. Try it like this:

use Term::ReadKey;

while(1)
{
        ReadMode(4);    # Set raw mode.
        while(not defined($firstkey=ReadKey(-1)))
        {
                print localtime();
                print "\n";
        }
        ReadMode(0);    # Restore original mode. 


        chomp($a=<STDIN>);
       
        if($a eq 'q')
        {
                exit;
        }
}
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-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";