I assume that when you say "pulse totalizer" you are referring to what we call event or edge counting. You didn't indicate which development environment you are using; however, LabVIEW will be an excellent choice especially since many examples already exist to perform event counting.
If you are using LabVIEW, take a look at the shipping example titled, "Count Buffered Edges (DAQ-STC).vi." You will connect your pulse generator into the source pin of one of your board's counters. The counter increments its event count everytime a pulse comes into its source input, and transfers that value to the internal buffer when a gate signal is received. You can also use the "Counter Get Attribute" VI to get the value of the current count register.
For more inform
ation check out our website at http://www.ni.com and search for event counting or count edges. Here is one link taht may prove useful.
Counting Signal Edges (Buffered)
http://zone.ni.com/devzone/taskdoc.nsf/2d17d611efb58b22862567a9006ffe76/51113501fbb9b10986256802007b8aa3?OpenDocument
Regards,
Justin Britten
Applications Engineer
National Instruments