Enabling standard assert() (by removing -DNDEBUG) produces non-bootable
binary (because all messages go to .rodata which silently overflows).
So, for once-off debugging, have a custom _assert().
Initialize RTC period coefficients, etc. if RTC RAM doesn't contain valid
values. time.time() then will return number of seconds since power-on, unless
set to different timebase.
This reuses MEM_MAGIC for the purpose beyond its initial purpose (but the whole
modpybrtc.c need to be eventually reworked completely anyway).