as a getting-to-know-my-ESP-12 exercise I copied up the RTC Example from the SDK Programming Guide appendix (section 8.2). I thought it might be useful to others so I put it up on git hub: https://github.com/0x6e/ESP8266-RTC-Example
The key issue I had a problem with was getting the os_printf functions not to send gobbledygook through the serial. I thought at first it was because I wasn't using a logic level converter. It turned out I needed to add the uart_init function and crucially, the driver/uart* files from the IoT Demo to my project to get it to work properly. Is this normal? Should I be able to just compile against the driver stuff as a library that I can't find? I wonder if it's because I did a separated toolchain build.
Anyway, I hope this is useful to some one.
Have fun.