[ECOS] Problems with eCos programs using delays on MPC860 based platform

[Ross Wightman <rwightma at sfu dot ca>]

After a long period of fidling and hacking I finally have eCos up and
running on an MPC860 based platform that is most similar to the MBX. The
GDB stubs are running fine, I can commincate with the board and load
programs onto the board and run them. In fact I can run about 60-70% of
the kernel tests without problem.. and 2 of the 4 examples. I am,
unfortunately running into some rather perplexing problems with any
programs using timers, delays, etc. Calls to functions such as
cyg_thread_delay leave the processor stuck forever in exception handling
routines.

I have been trying to debug this problem for quite a few days now and it
has eaten up a lot more time that I would have liked. Any suggestions from
those more experienced than I would be much appreciated.

Here are some examples of programs that run/dont run:

run:
    examples:
    hello.c
    serial.c

    kernel tests:
    clock0
    memfix2
    memvar2
    intr0
    except1
    clockcnv
    mutex0-2
    thread0
    mbox1 (takes awhile for the timed functions but seems to work)

don't run:
    examples:
    twothreads
    simple-alarm

    kernel tests:
    memfix1
    memvar1
    clock1
    thread1
    mutex3
    tm_basic (during Kernel Timed Tests)

    mpc8xx tests:
    intr0 (wrong count value, pit count goes to 5, but count also only
           goes to 5 when it should be 42)

    mbx tests:
    mbxtime (goes kaboom after "Starting measured seconds..." is
             displayed)



   thanks