Your script works for me. Maybe the addition of a bit of code will help you see what is happening at the end of the script. You need to remember that STDIN is line buffered, so if you select 2 for example, you still need to hit a Return for it to be read by $question = <STDIN>;

If you want single key responses, see Re: Using File::Tail::select with STDIN? , where you don't need the Return key to capture a keystroke.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $question;
my $computer;
my @pc = qw(comp1 comp2 comp3 comp4 comp5);

# Find out which computer to cold start
system("clear");
do {
    print "Which computer would you like to cold start?\n";
    print "1 - comp1
2 - comp2
3 - comp3
4 - comp4
5 - comp5\n";
    $question = <STDIN>;

    chomp($question);

} until ($question >= 1) & ($question <= 5);

$question--;

$computer = $pc[$question];

print "$computer\n";
print "Hit Return to continue\n";
<>;  # wait for a newline

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