diff -durN packages-orig/xemacs-packages/fsf-compat/timer.el packages/xemacs-packages/fsf-compat/timer.el
--- packages-orig/xemacs-packages/fsf-compat/timer.el	Mon Apr  6 12:42:07 1998
+++ packages/xemacs-packages/fsf-compat/timer.el	Mon Jul 23 22:22:04 2001
@@ -45,7 +45,10 @@
 TIME must be in the internal format returned by, e.g., `current-time'.
 If optional third argument DELTA is a non-zero integer, make the timer
 fire repeatedly that many seconds apart."
-  (set-itimer-value timer (itimer-time-difference time (current-time)))
+  (let ((timer-when (itimer-time-difference time (current-time))))
+    (or (> timer-when 0)
+        (setq timer-when 1))
+    (set-itimer-value timer timer-when))
   (and delta (check-nonnegative-number delta))
   (and delta (set-itimer-restart timer delta))
   timer)