Abstract: A signaling method and apparatus is described for obtaining a compact but high-resolution and wide-range digital representation of the frequency or period of an input signal. A reference frequency is counted over a number of cycles of the input signal by a counter having a nonlinear response so that the digital representation provided by the counter's value has a relatively high resolution over a wide range. The nonlinear response is provided by selectively dividing the reference frequency in response to the counter's value to obtain a clocking signal for the counter. A minimum resolution is preferably insured by requiring the counter to register a predetermined minimum number of counts before a frequency-indicating value is sampled by a latch. A predetermined function is applied to the sampled value to obtain the approximate number of counts that the counter would have registered but for the selective division of the reference frequency.