ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Pulse-swallowing counter

Imagine you have a bunch of candies to count. When you count them one by one, you might lose track or forget how many you've counted. But what if you had a special machine that could count them for you and keep track of the total?

A pulse-swallowing counter is kind of like that special machine. It works by counting electrical signals, or "pulses," that are sent to it. Each time a pulse is sent, the counter adds one to its total.

But here's the cool part: the pulse-swallowing counter can be programmed to only count a certain number of pulses before it "swallows" them all at once and adds the total to its count. This means that if you have a bunch of pulses coming in really quickly, the counter won't get overwhelmed and start counting incorrectly.

Think of it like a big cookie jar. Each time you put a cookie in the jar, it makes a little "ping" sound. Instead of counting each individual ping, you can set the jar to only count every 10 pings. So once you've put in 10 cookies and heard 10 pings, the jar "swallows" them all and adds 10 to its total count.

A pulse-swallowing counter is used in all sorts of electronic devices, from medical equipment to digital cameras to traffic signals. Basically, anytime you need to count something quickly and accurately, a pulse-swallowing counter can help!