Is there a way for the editor to immediately echo information (from the PHP code) instead of waiting for the program to terminate, i.e., no output buffering? I need the output to make sure a long running program isn't hung.

Have you tried flushing it?

ob_get_level();
ob_end_flush();
// start output buffering
if (ob_get_length() === false) {
ob_start();
}
echo "Part one, $var1<br />";
ob_flush();
flush();

That works. Thanks. I appreciate the help.