Typing...how did you learn?

[Khephra]

[da_chimperor]

1. Practice. I took touch typing classes in high school (it was required)

but I could type substantially faster without touch typing. I just know where all the keys are. I just got used to typing without touching the keyboard. It doesn't really matter where my hands are.

[GiovanniC]

52. You Can Type Without Touching the Keyboard?

I'm good, but I'm not that good.

[starbuck6446]

2. had to be faster during instant messaging...

friends were tired of waiting on my answers.

[Eric J in MN]

3. I used typing tutorial software, "Mavis Beacon" nt

nt

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

25. Mavis Beacon rocks!

That's how I learned, too.

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

4. First time I sat in front of a keyboard of any time , i was around 4

Yep thats how I learned my to recognize the letters in the alphabet ... and along with the numerous amounts of time I have had to sit in front of a keyboard to type up something . Can't forget about school , lots of typing in school . And then something called the internet ( just found out there is more than one ! ) . Basically repetitive motion done really fast .

[shanti]

5. i learned how to type in 1968, willard junior high school

on an ibm selectric. aaa,sss,ddd,fff,a,s,d,f!;-)

[gospelized]

15. i just did some research

the IBM selectric never existed at willard junior high school until 1971!!

[shanti]

40. so flay me!

jeez! i'm 49 after all, my memory is not as good as it used to be! that's what i remember, but the selectric was probably in high school (which WOULD have been 1971-1973). i took typing in high school too and do remember using that kind of typewriter.

but IF YOU SAY SO, it might have been a manual, now i remember. it was an olivetti underwood manual, big old heavy machine.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. High school

an old Royal manual. I have little strength in my fingers, and had to struggle to make the keys work. Loved it when electrics and then computers came online.

[Rick Myers]

7. Missus Zetts!!!

On an old Remington manual!!! Didn't get to use a Selectric until I was in the air force at Ft. Ben!!!

Good karma to you, Kef!

Reading R. A. Wilson's "Quantum Psychology" right now, thought of you when I picked it up at a flea market!!!

Hope all is well. :thumbsup:

[Khephra]

10. Heya, coolya!

:hi:

[SoCalDem]

8. I didn't...Isn't it obvious?

:silly:

[alittlelark]

16. same here, doesn't it suck!

But I can hunt and peck at 30-35 wpm!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

41. Me 2

I have to keep looking at the keyboard all the time. aND SOMETIMES, WHEN i'M TYPING A SENTENCE THAT BEGINS WITH AN "a", WHICH IS RIGHT NEXT TO cAPS lOCK...

oh crap. :dunce:

[Dilligent]

9. Typing

I bought a typing program Typing Instructor Deluxe. I'm still learning but it is an easy way to learn if you practice every day.

[BigMcLargehuge]

11. writing papers for college

the books for myself

[KoKo]

12. The "old fashioned way." Which looking at folks around me seems to

have been not the best. My "click speed" on computers as opposed to typing is not as good as those folks who never had the "old classes." They all do better with two fingers...:D All though I'm happy with the way I learned I still have to punch in numbers with one or two fingers...don't have the "stretch.."

:hi: Keph...

[mikehiggins]

13. Took it in Junior High, along with speedwriting/steno

Then somebody mentioned I was a boy and I dropped out.

Oh, for the "good old days" of rampant cultural sexism.

Still, I learned enough to get started learning on my own. Still can't type a reasonable wpm (too many misteaks) but it beats the hell out of my long hand.

(I was left-handed until I went to Catholic grade school...but that's a story for another time.)

[Kenneth ken]

14. huh?

how hard can it be? Look at the keyboard, find the letter you want to type, and use the index finger of whichever hand is closer.

What's this learning thing you speak of?

[JohnKleeb]

17. 8th grade keyboarding class

[Ellen Forradalom]

34. I'm glad they're still teaching the young'uns touch typing

I bet you're glad you took that class.

[Khephra]

18. My story:

I took some classes on an old manual typewriter. Not many.

But then, in the Atari 800 days, I found out about Scott Adams' Adventure Games.

The rest is history....

(Text gamers rule! :party: )

[Pithlet]

36. Text games!

They were fun. A good way to practice typing. My favorites were Zork and the one based on Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

I learned on a typewriter, too. That's one of those things now that make you feel old. They switched to computers mid semester, though. Some people don't even call it "typing" anymore.

My 3 year old was watching a vintage Sesame Street, and there was a cartoon of a little typewriter with arms and legs that typed on himself to spell out words. He didn't know what a typewriter was, because he'd never seen one.

[Dudley_DUright]

19. Summer School in Jr. High

My mom made me take the course. I hated it at the time, but I will be forever grateful since nowadays typing is so very important.

[djeseru]

20. 1980's high school electics.

But got real rusty by 1990's college. Much beter these days since this version of the Internet took off but still error-prone.

[No Mandate Here.]

21. Sort Of Learned,...By Blog ging and PosTIng and EmA il. <nt>

[Career Prole]

22. Learn? Oh...learn!

One finger at a time. Both of 'em are fairly competent now so I'm styling I'll even throw in a thumb for spacing. :D

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

23. Ms. Rogers

in high school. She was thrice-divorced, tanned so much she looked like old shoe leather, had ENORMOUS hairspray shellaced hair, wore jeans so tight they looked spray painted on (and wore spiked heels with them!!) and drove a Corvette. She went to every football game and cheered on our high school so hard she'd lose her voice.

She taught us typing on IBM Selectrics. She had a VERY thick twang and I remember feeling sorry for her because her whole job, five class periods a day, went like this:

"PUT YOUR FANGERS ON THE HOME KEYS!! L! L! L! SPACE! L! L! L! SPACE! L! L! L! SPACE!"

Sheesh. I'd open a vein, I really would. But I learned to type very quickly and correctly and today I type 85 wpm, 95% accuracy.

[NJCher]

24. taught myself

I taught myself most things--even foreign languages when I was a kid.

I could never understand what use teachers were.

Then I ended up being a teacher.

I'm a fairly lousy teacher, as one might expect.


Cher

[shraby]

26. High school on an old Underwood upright

Didn't get carpal tunnel but did get strong fingers.

[Nomad559]

27. I don't type

I peck,peck,peck with two fingers.
That's why you rarely see any long-worded posts from me.

But, I am great at copy and pasting. :evilgrin:

[cedahlia]

28. high school typing class

I would definitely recommend it to any kid in high school. Even though I hated high school, and from 10th grade on I basically said, fuck it, as far as doing any schoolwork went...in that class I really worked hard (heh, heh.) Maybe I had some kind of inclination of just how important it would be to me in the future??? Anyway, now that I'm in college (which I love, by the way!) I'm very glad I took the class, because my dad never learned, and has had to "turkey-type" his way through writing two books! And one of my best friends has to have her husband type up all her papers for college 'cause she never learned!

So, kids in high school, if you're listening...I can't tell you how you should buckle down and do your very best work in high school (I sure didn't) but even if you don't think you're going to do it now, you may just one day wind up in college with lots of papers to write, or you might just want to write your own book someday, so just take the damn class...it's well worth the effort! :D

[Penndems]

29. In my senior year of high school, back in 1973 eom

[qnr]

30. Military

Radioman Class A school. Had to learn it to copy CW (morse code).

[miss_kitty]

31. I have n't learned

i hav e a great deal of trouble typing. I have to look down and that flashing banner thing screws me up if I haven't scrolled it off my screen, because sometimes i hit a button that moves my cursor to no field and i'llm be typing away on...nothinfg

:nuke: :grr: :nuke:

[NightTrain]

32. I taught myself.

By age 15, I realized that I wanted to write fiction. So when my parents asked me what I wanted for my 16th birthday, I told them an electric typewriter and an instruction manual. Mom and dad got them for me and the rest.... Well, you know!

[Ellen Forradalom]

33. Junior high school, 1975

The teacher, a nice lady whose name I've long since forgotten, wore pantsuits and hornrims. Learned on manual machines, which required serious pressure to depress the keys. I was typing 35 wpm by the end of year; lifetime top speed is 92. Boring as hell to learn but an amazingly useful skill.

[Pithlet]

35. High school.

I've become pretty good at it, too. I've been clocked at over 100 wpm no errors. I'm probably between 80 and 90 now.

[politicat]

37. Self taught. Started writing papers in Jr. High on an old manual, portable

olivetti typewriter because my PC - a Texas Instrument 99/4A - didn't have printer capability and my mother would not let me touch her brand new 8086 she bought off of QVC. (Okay, you can laugh at my family now.)

Needless to say, I got good at typing without typos.

When I finally got to a computer, I kept the habits and I do keep a typewriter around, just in case.

Pcat

[starroute]

38. Taught myself from a book in 8th grade

My parents got me a typewriter (a manual Olympic) when I graduated from elementary school, but I didn't do much with it for a while. I don't remember what motivated me, but in 8th grade, I finally sat down with the manual, practiced asdf's until I knew which fingers to use on which keys, and then started typing out my social studies notes. For a while, I had to watch my fingers to make sure I was hitting the right keys, but by the end of the year I was able to do it without looking.

Actually, I just remembered that they tried giving us typing lessons in school in 6th grade -- they'd haul us into the school library once a week and have typewriters set up on each table for us to bang away at. But I don't think it could have gone beyond basic familiarization, because I know I had to start from scratch when I taught myself.

[Quetzal]

39. 7th grade typing class

back in 1996

[neebob]

42. High school

So I'd have something to fall back on!

[Out the Parasites]

45. me too!

[arwalden]

43. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (Apple //e) 1986

Before that I typed with my index fingers only.

I always wanted to learn to type on the DVORAK keyboard but never did. It's kind of frustrating to realize that we're all typing on the QWERTY keyboard that was purposely designed to be complicated and to SLOW DOWN typists who were typing too fast for old mechanical typewriters.

In contrast the DVORAK keyboard is arranged so that the most common letters can be typed without the fingers leaving the "home" keys (or without having to travel far from the home keys).

-- Allen

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

44. High school, touch typing class. HUGELY helpful.

In this computer age quite honestly I think it should be mandatory curriculum maybe even at JR high or elem school since the kids are already using keyboards by then. Okay maybe JR high since the elem schoolers have hands too small.

Of course maybe within a few to 10 years there will be high quality voice recognition dictation software that will render this moot.

[BlackVelvetElvis]

46. High School. From a shop teacher missing a finger.

It was funny watching him type; he compensated with another finger.
We had electrics and manuals. If you were late to class, you wound up on a manual. One elective I never regret taking.

[Glenda]

47. I didn't like the HS typing teacher...

So I got a book out of the library and taught myself. I did all the letters, but then gave up when I got to the numbers and symbols. To this day I have to be extra careful with the numbers and symbols.

G

[supernova]

48. One year of typing in 10th grade

It was a business class. We did have a semester long course called "personal typing" for academics, but it was discontinued by the time I got to 10th grade.

Actually, besides learning to read, typing is the most useful skill -- other than critical thinking-- I've ever learned.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

49. Struggled with "hunt and peck" for years until

I took a one-half credit typing class during my junior year in college.

We had typewriters (this was the olden days, you young whippersnappers) with blank keys and a wall chart to follow as the teacher dictated words and letter sequences to us.

[T Bone]

50. I type only with my thumbs and my index and my perch fingers only.

6 fingers and I fly ! I can get around 60 wpm, well that seems like flying to me.

[curse10]

51. we were required to take typing in elementary school

from grades 2-6. If we finished our lessons with time to spare we could use the rest of the hour to play Oregon Trail!