scanf() isn't the only game in town when it comes to input. Another common input function I highly recommend knowing is the venerable fgetc(), which specializes in reading just a single character (ie byte of data) from a specified file pointer.
#include <stdio.h> int main() { char a, b, c, d; fprintf(stdout, "Enter a char:"); a = fgetc(stdin); fprintf(stdout, "Enter a char:"); b = fgetc(stdin); fprintf(stdout, "Enter a char:"); c = fgetc(stdin); fprintf(stdout, "Enter a char:"); d = fgetc(stdin); fprintf(stdout, "You entered ASCII chars %hhu, %hhu, %hhu, and %hhu\n", a, b, c, d); return(0);