Event counter and method for driving a circuit device

Abstract

An event counter is disclosed which, in one embodiment, provides a reaction timer to time a user's response time to an event. In a second embodiment, the event counter provides a counting device to count the number of occurrences of events or the magnitude of an event. The invention uses a commercially available stopwatch to time the response time. The start/stop switch of the stopwatch is connected to a signal generator such as a piezoelectric element. In one variation, the internal piezoelectric element used as a beeper in the stopwatch is used as the signal generator. In a second variation, the event timer is further provided with a circuit to allow a higher voltage LED to be driven by a lower voltage of the system battery. In yet another variation, the event timer further includes a random delay circuit to randomly delay the start time of the stopwatch. Random delay is provided without a microprocessor by using a variable current switch and two RC circuits having different tau values. The differential voltage of the two RC circuits is used to activate the start/stop switch.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.