Update adds a general source for retrieving a monotonic time.
In addition, AE has been updated to utilize the new monotonic
clock for timer processing.
This performance improvement is **not** enabled in a default build due to various H/W compatibility
concerns, see README.md for details. It does however change the default use of gettimeofday with
clock_gettime and somewhat improves performance.
This update provides the following
1. An interface for retrieving a monotonic clock. getMonotonicUs returns a uint64_t (aka monotime)
with the number of micro-seconds from an arbitrary point. No more messing with tv_sec/tv_usec.
Simple routines are provided for measuring elapsed milli-seconds or elapsed micro-seconds (the
most common use case for a monotonic timer). No worries about time moving backwards.
2. High-speed assembler implementation for x86 and ARM. The standard method for retrieving the
monotonic clock is POSIX.1b (1993): clock_gettime(CLOCK_MONOTONIC, timespec*). However, most
modern processors provide a constant speed instruction clock which can be retrieved in a fraction
of the time that it takes to call clock_gettime. For x86, this is provided by the RDTSC
instruction. For ARM, this is provided by the CNTVCT_EL0 instruction. As a compile-time option,
these high-speed timers can be chosen. (Default is POSIX clock_gettime.)
3. Refactor of event loop timers. The timer processing in ae.c has been refactored to use the new
monotonic clock interface. This results in simpler/cleaner logic and improved performance.
