Input

Checking for ESCAPE

This is fairly easy: Monitor the keyboard scancode port for ESC which is #1, then deal with it:

        in      al,60h          ;read whatever is at keyboard port; looking for ESC which is #1
        dec     ax              ;if ESC, AX now 0
        jnz     mainloop        ;fall through if 0, do jump somewhere else if otherwise

Checking for any keypress

If you need to shave a byte, it might be possible in some environments to check for any keypress instead of just escape using less code:

        in      al,60h          ;read whatever is at keyboard port
        das                     ;If non-zero, parity will be set
        jp      mainloop        ;Jump if parity

An alternative if not running DOSBox:

        in      al,60h          ;read whatever is at keyboard port
        aaa
        jz      mainloop        ;Jump if zero

The above are somewhat flaky due to different hardware, VMs, and emulators not honoring flags correctly.