How to let a loop run for a while before checking for break condition?

[Claudio Grondi]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> Diez B. Roggisch wrote:
> 
>> A while loop has a condition. period. The only thing to change that is 
>> to introduce a uncoditioned loop, and use self-modifying code to make 
>> it a while-loop after that timer interrupt of yours.
> 
> 
> or use a timer interrupt to interrupt the loop:
> 
> import signal, time
> 
> def func1(timeout):
> 
>     def callback(signum, frame):
>         raise EOFError # could use a custom exception instead
>     signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, callback)
>     signal.alarm(timeout)
> 
>     count = 0
>     try:
>         while 1:
>             count += 1
>     except EOFError:
>         for i in range(10):
>             count += 1
>     print count
> 
> for an utterly trivial task like the one in that example, the alarm 
> version runs about five times faster than a polling version, on my test 
> machine (ymmv):
> 
> def func2(timeout):
> 
>     gettime = time.time
>     t_limit = gettime() + timeout
> 
>     count = 0
>     while gettime() < t_limit:
>         count += 1
>     for i in range(10):
>         count += 1
>     print count
> 
> </F>
> 

This above is exactly what I am looking for, except it does not work in 
Microsoft Windows where the signal.alarm() function is not available.

So now the only thing I would like to know is how to achieve the same 
functionality when running Python on a Microsoft Windows box.

Claudio Grondi