Need direction on PHP-CLI MUD Server

Hello, I have been banging my head trying to figure out how to design a MUD Server using PHP-CLI as the server and PHP-CLI as the "command" language. (telnet front end at this point) I have found the great Pear Net_Server which seems to work really good for Alpha and the Forking Mode is great to really take advantage of threading etc... I can of course exec("external.php") to run the external commands but.... The real problem is full interaction with the user in those external commands (php-cli scripts) to send and read data. For example: The PHP-CLI Server gets the command "bank" so it runs the PHP-CLI shell script "bank.php" using $r = exec("bank.php"). The "bank.php" shell script has the following code #!/usr/local/bin/php -q <? // not really tested just a example Function input () { // some how get input from the user } $balance = 123.45 Echo "You have ".$balance; // some how send this out before the script ends Echo "How much would you like? "; // this to $howmuch = input(); $balance -= $howmuch; Echo "You have ".$balance." Left"; ?> A. How do I create a input method to connect the external PHP script to the Server's Socket? B. Since the PHP-CLI script never ends how can I send the first echo "You have..."? Any Ideas??? Heck I havn't even gotten to ncurses yet! BTW platform UNIX-OS X+PHP 5 --with-ncurses --enable-pcntl --mysql Going for 100% PHP-CLI D Myers