'A'    => 1,
'G'    => 2,
'AG'   => 1,
'GG'   => 1,
'AGG'  => 1,

##</code><code>##

use warnings; use strict;

open GENE, '<', '\test.txt' or die("Unable to read: $!");
my @rolling = (undef, undef, undef);
my %count;
my $cnt;

until (eof GENE) {
   my $char;
   read(GENE,$char,1);
   next unless $char=~/[AGCT]/; #make sure it's a valid char;

   shift @rolling;
   push @rolling, $char;

   next unless defined $rolling[2];
   $count{$rolling[2]}++;            #one-char count

   next unless defined $rolling[1];
   $count{join('',@rolling[1,2])}++; #two-char count

   next unless defined $rolling[0]; 
   $count{join('',@rolling)}++;      #three-char count
}

##</code><code>##

my @chars = qw[A C G T];
for my $aleph (0..$#chars) {
   $count{$aleph}=0;
   for my $beth (0..$#chars) {
      $count{$aleph.$beth}=0;
      for my $gimal (0..$#chars) {
         $count{$aleph.$beth.$gimal}=0;
      }
   }
}

##</code><code>##

60 wallclock secs (59.19 usr +  0.03 sys = 59.22 CPU) @  0.02/s (n=1)

##</code><code>##

for ( reverse(0..$#rolling) ) {
   next unless defined $_-@rolling;
   $count{join('',@rolling[$_-@rolling,-1])}++;
}