Ok -- Unix wizards... in search of the elusive VMS character IO

[SHRAGE at WHARTON (Jeffrey Shrager)]

We run VMS and thus are certainly not experts in Unix system calls. When
I asked about character IO I was informed that the Unix SYSCALL function
actually works in VMS as well.  The problem is that we don't really know
how to do this (not being Unix wizards).  Does someone out there actually
have the code to do this magic in LISP that I can glom straight?

[Someone actually said that they did but I've lost the mail and forgotten
 who it was]