Here is my (curent) variation of the above gets function:

sub gets {
  my $timeout;
  my($str, $c, $rin, $rout, $found, $timeleft);

  #be really pessimistic about how long it will take for the fist char
  $timeout = 120; #time in seconds

  $rin = '';
  vec($rin, fileno(COM), 1) = 1;

  while (1) {
    ($found, $timeleft) = select($rout=$rin, undef, undef, $timeout); 
+ #look for input for up to $timeout seconds
    last unless $found;  #give up if nothing was found
    $timeout = $timeout - $timeleft;
    $timeout ||= 15;  #the $timeout must be >= 15 seconds
    sysread(COM, $c, 1);  #read the next char
    if (($c ne "\0")&&($c =~ /[\w\*\-\t\:\/ ]/)) { #sanitize the data
      $str .= $c;  #put the char at the end of the string
    } elsif ($c =~ /\r/) { #Note: must only match \n OR \r.  Matching 
+both does odd stuff
      last;
    }
  }
  return $str;
}
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This version will hopefully take care of some of those *really* slow connections and not waste *too* much time after the transfer is complete.
As for performance, Im not terribly concerned because the datastream is at 1200 baud and sofar this has proven fast enough. It also allows me to do some filtering of the data as it comes in.