diff --git a/alsamixer/mainloop.c b/alsamixer/mainloop.c
index 7a5ffdc..eddaf3b 100644
--- a/alsamixer/mainloop.c
+++ b/alsamixer/mainloop.c
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ void initialize_curses(bool use_color)
 	curses_initialized = initscr();
 	cbreak();
 	noecho();
-#ifdef NCURSES_VERSION
+#ifdef HAVE_CURSES_ESCDELAY
 	set_escdelay(100);
 #endif
 	window_size_changed(); /* update screen_lines/cols */
diff --git a/configure.in b/configure.in
index ec2a8bc..931d034 100644
--- a/configure.in
+++ b/configure.in
@@ -171,6 +171,11 @@ if test x$alsamixer = xtrue; then
   fi
   LIBS="$CURSESLIB $LIBS"
 
+  AC_TRY_LINK([#include <panel.h>], [set_escdelay(100);],[HAVE_CURSES_ESCDELAY="yes"])
+  if test "$HAVE_CURSES_ESCDELAY" = "yes"; then
+    AC_DEFINE([HAVE_CURSES_ESCDELAY], 1, [Have curses set_escdelay])
+  fi
+
   if test "$USE_NLS" = "yes"; then
     AC_MSG_CHECKING([for curses NLS support])
     dnl In theory, a single-byte curses works just fine in ISO 8859-* locales.