Talking of cheap eval boards, I came across the following board this morning:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/37qgzh6 STM32F103VET6, UART on DB-9, standard 20-way JTAG, RTC, MicroSD, QVGA colour LCD (with touchscreen), DataFlash, GPIO header. US$ 58.00. Currently with free shipping worldwide. It should be very easy to bring up eCos on this hardware by adapting the STM3210E-EVAL platform port. eCos support for the LCD and touchscreen would make a great student project. I have no affiliation with the vendor. John Dallaway -- Before posting, please read the FAQ: http://ecos.sourceware.org/fom/ecos and search the list archive: http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/ecos-discuss