Live updating counter (need to use strings or array?)

Processing Coding Questions
2

I don’t know if I understand well, but let’s create an event with a thread() and just add a counter something like this. Where do you want to go from here?

long count;
String data = "";

void setup() {
  size(500, 150);
  textSize(18);
  start_time = millis();
}

void draw() {
  background(0);
  if (frameCount % 30 == 0) {
    thread("requestData");
  }
  text("Incoming data = "+data+"       Count: "+count, 50, 50); 
}

void requestData() {
  if(millis() - start_time > random(1000, 5000)) {
    count++;
    start_time = millis();
    data = "Xx"+random(100, 10000);
  }
}