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When I was in elementary school, I attended a twice-weekly “computer class” which primarily consisted of repeated runs through some now-forgotten typing software on Apple ][e computers. While running this program, we had to put cardboard boxes over the keyboard (with cut-outs so our little wrists could get in), and let me tell you, cheating was rampant. When a student got to the end of a level in the typing program and reached the timed test, a teacher would stand there with one hand on the box to prevent the “lift and peek,” the most popular form of performance enhancement. (I was guilty of that one, though I never graduated to the heinous “oops, where’d my box go?” which could only be perpetrated with a confederate who maintained a distraction for the duration of the test.)
Despite years of continuous typing education, I didn’t pick up touch typing until late in the sixth grade. What happened then? Well, I got a job as a typist and simply had to figure it out. I had a job for an online service typing in hardcopy articles (with permission) into their library of ASCII text downloads (the payment was free access to the service). I had to key in something like five articles a week. The first week, typing five articles took me hours…but very quickly I was doing it in just minutes. During this period of rapidly learning touch-typing, I found myself daydreaming about the keyboard, visualizing the keypresses as I thought words. For example, if I thought the word “wombat,” I’d see it as a series of keypresses on the keyboard, w-o-m-b-a-t. It got to the point where I wouldn’t let myself think faster than I could mentally hit the keys — that’s when I really learned it.
I think everyone’s journey to typing is a little different. My typing is pretty standard home-position touch typing. I’m pretty fast, but I make a lot of mistakes. I have several very computer literate friends who have evolved a surprisingly fast variant of hunt-and-peck which relies heavily on index fingers and thumbs. And they seem to get along with it just fine. So here’s the question: how did you learn to type? And the bonus question: what typing method do you use? (Do you perform true touch-typing or some personal variant?)
I may be dating myself a bit, but I learned on an actual typewriter (it was electric at least). I taught myself out of a book. It used a method where you learned the strokes for each finger. For example, the left pinkie - aqaz; then - swsx; dedc; frfv; gtgv. And so forth. I don’t actually remember those combinations any more, but that is what got me started. Then lots of repetition. (By the way, my boss still types using only one finger at a time.)
posted by Karen on 9-25-2007 at 11:07 am
My first typing class was in middle school, on TRS-80’s. I didn’t learn a whole lot of typing method, though, because it took a good ten minutes swapping disks (5 1/4″) back and forth between the two drives to even get the program loaded. Then we had to put the disks back in and go through the same process whenever we advanced a level.
I really picked it up in high school, though - had a great teacher (hi, Mrs. Newsom!) and, since the school was new, a great computer lab in which to learn both how to type and how to play Scorched Earth.
Just curious - anybody out there use the Dvorak method?
posted by Roger on 9-25-2007 at 11:10 am
Typewriter for me. Touch method - had to spend a week on a typewriter with nothing on the keys.
Learned that a consistent rhythm rewards me with better accuracy. When I’m taking notes and don’t care, I end up with some real jibberish.
Wife can do 100 wpm - no errors.
I do 35 wpm - about 10 errors.
BTW: I hate having to use the @ in email. I just can’t get my ring finger to hit that correctly as much as I should!
When they release the new internet, I hope they replace the @ with the ^ because that’s easier.
posted by GoingLikeSixty on 9-25-2007 at 11:17 am
I had typing tutor classes in middle school. We would go through this program that would go through different key strokes repeatedly that we would copy. It was extremely helpful!
posted by Jennifer on 9-25-2007 at 11:18 am
Wow! Talk about a blast from the past…
I learned to type in summer school between 6th and 7th grades. That’d put it around 1961. JFK was just starting his short career as POTUS.
The course was offered at the local High School for anyone who wanted to take it. We used old Corona manuals. Electric typewriters were new-fangled and only for the elite.
We didn’t have “hide your hands under the box” - in fact, I never heard of it until now. There were caps over the keys with the letters imprinted on them, and six week into the course they took the caps away so the keys were blank except for the positioning tabs on the ‘f’ and ‘j’.
By the end of the course I was typing a respectable 50 wpm with no errors - faster with some oops.
In the early days of the proto-internet (we had BBSs and early usegroups) I could out-type my modem - would fill up the buffer, wait for it to empty, then type some more.
I still use the 10-finger technique, although I ocasionally get lazy and forget the little finger on my right hand, other than to hit “enter” or work the 10-key numeric keypad. Then again, I learned to play piano when I was four and have always been pretty good with my hands.
One of the advantages of taking the course was that very few boys ever enrolled. In fact, there were NO boys, other than me, in the class. If I’d hit puberty a few years early, I would have been in hog heaven. :)
posted by Doc on 9-25-2007 at 11:23 am
I learned the ALMENA method in elementary school in about grade five. We had paper taped on the top of the keyboard — way to easily lifted! The “p” was always the hard letter for me to remember!
posted by Kate on 9-25-2007 at 11:31 am
I’m mostly self-taught, the direct result of playing lots of old Sierra On-Line adventure games when I was a kid, where you had to type in what you wanted the character to do (e.g. GET LAMP).
posted by Joe on 9-25-2007 at 11:32 am
When I was in high school 98-2002 it was required for students to take Keyboarding with Mr. Schubee, and we just used a keyboarding program. Some day’s we would just have ‘free typing’ and practiced our typing by writing about whatever we wanted and then hand it in to Mr. Schubee. I remember my friend in the class once wrote about her dream about a snake tattooed on a penis and a bunch of other perverted stuff of which the teacher never made any comments on like ‘this is inappropriate’. Then since there were budget cuts, Keyboarding class was eliminated and now students soon to be in the working world will be typing with their index fingers, annoying all of us who know how to correctly type.
posted by Susan on 9-25-2007 at 11:32 am
I think I took a computer class in middle school, but we spent most of our time talking the teacher into letting us play “Oregon Trail,” on the primitive computers. Thought it was pretty cool.
My parents had the first computer on the block, and bought the typing program “Mavis Beacon,” or something like that. I remember that it was at least moderatly humerous, so I paid some attention to that. There were several arcade-like games in the Mavis Beacon program, and I liked to try those.
I really didn’t get good at touch typing until college, when handwritten papers were no longer as acceptable, and email really took off. I rarely look at the keyboard, and only really have trouble with numbers and sometimes punctuation. I lose track of where my fingers should be. I don’t think I ever did that section of the Mavis Beacon program.
posted by Jenny on 9-25-2007 at 11:36 am
I was a miserable typing student. I remember the teacher putting a towel on our hands so we couldn’t look at the keys while we typed.
My worst subjects were typing and woodworking.
I didn’t become the prolific typist I am today until my senior year of high school, when my grandparents bought me a computer and my parents decided we should try out this new AmericaOnline thing. Trying to keep five IM discussions going forced me to speed things up.
Never picked up a knack for the woodworking, though.
posted by Jason on 9-25-2007 at 11:36 am
I took computer classes in middle school and high school that weren’t really consistant enough for me to learn to type. I’d say what really did it was using AIM in college (I just graduated in ‘06). I’d have to be quick to keep up with whatever gossip my friends and I happened to be talking about. It sounds lame, but it really worked and I think most of my friends improved their typing skills the same way.
posted by Emily on 9-25-2007 at 11:37 am
I took typing lessons, but they didn’t really kick in. I credit lots of AIM and IRC chatting for my current typing skills. I have some weird typing method that I use in which I am able to avoid looking at the keyboard terribly often (until I miss a letter and I have to glance down to see where the key I want IS). I probably should try to retrain myself to touch type but I don’t know if it’ll help me that much…
posted by xenylamine on 9-25-2007 at 11:43 am
I learned in High School. Dick Nixon was our prez! I can’t recall if it was just a term or it took a whole year to do Typing I.
Half the class used manuals, half electrics then they made us switch part way through…I volunteered to start on the manual. I figured I’d wouldn’t like giving up the electric to step down to a manual. Anyhow our teacher was Claudette Eskola and she had a bit of a southern accent. (This was the Oregon Coast, so it stood out.)
I can still hear her voice saying “F-strike, F-strike, F-strike…” We did one letter at a time drills at first.
If people cheated and looked at their hands they made them use a machine with NO letters printed on it.
posted by Lauren on 9-25-2007 at 11:44 am
I can’t really recall how I started learning how to type. I fooled around a lot on computers beginning in elementary just playing games and such. Then in middle school I pretty much had the technique of touch-typing down and when I was put in a typing class I whizzed by all the other kids doing practice rounds.
posted by Marina on 9-25-2007 at 11:53 am
Oh, as a follow-up. My method that I currently use is probably touch-typing.
posted by Marina on 9-25-2007 at 11:55 am
I learned in middle school in an elective typing course. Electric typewriters that didn’t have letters on them at all. Our typing books had the keyboard diagram in it, so we had to make the mental jump from the diagram to the keyboard. Not quite as easy as hunt ‘n peck.
I only took the class because my mom told me it would be good for me. Not because of computers, though — hadn’t heard of ‘em — figured it would help with future job opps or typing up decent-looking school papers. So I did what any red-blooded American girl would do: ignored my mom’s advice, got a B in the class (36 wpm), then got blindsided by computers when I got into the college.
posted by Anita on 9-25-2007 at 11:55 am
I learned in high school in 1990 on an electric typewriter. I still remember the teacher standing at the front of the classroom with her yard stick slamming on a desk and yelling “A-S-D-F-J-K-L-SEM!” over and over and over. 30 typewriters all pounding in unison to the teachers voice. Even though it was 17 years ago, I remember that class like it was yesterday. Oh, and I can type faster than anyone I know.
posted by Trevor Little on 9-25-2007 at 11:59 am
I learned to type in Jr. High, in a mandatory (Arkansas is progressive, I swear!) typing class. I believe we were using those old classic 486 SXs running Windows 3.1.
Wow, I feel old.
We, the boys of the class anyways, learned to touch type. We picked it up very well, due to the fact that none of us wanted to tear our eyes off the teacher to look at the keyboards.
Not only did we boys develop our typing skills there, we expanded our imaginations. It didn’t hurt that she would jog by my house every morning.
When I graduated High School, I was hired on as a draftsman for a packaging company. To make my life easier, I reprogrammed many of the commands to use the left hand side of the keyboard (Command Line AutoCAD all the way) so I could keep my right on the mouse. The Left Hand Dominate style I made there has stuck with me to this day, so my typing is a wee bit lopsided.
posted by Vlachen on 9-25-2007 at 12:04 pm
i actually learned in a 9th grade class called “typing and stenoscript” which was half typing and half shorthand. and the typing was on electronic typewriters. just to show you how quickly the computer revolution hit, this was, what seems like yesterday, in 1991. and i use a variation of the touch method with my good old home row keys…
posted by Yerg on 9-25-2007 at 12:07 pm
Although, all that doesn’t mean that my spelling has improved. Especially when I use the wrong freaking word.
posted by Vlachen on 9-25-2007 at 12:08 pm
I took typing in high school (1989-1993) using only computers. We mainly concentrated on learning the home row first and then branching from there. We had workbooks that used typical business letters, memos, etc. that we had to recreate by the time the period was over. As a kid who had a computer in his house since 1980, though, I had a pretty good head start on knowing where the keys were. So really it was just a matter of learning which ones to hit with which fingers. Needless to say I wound up typing a lot of assignments for the slower guys in my class. Anything to stay popular, ya know?
posted by SpaceMonkeyX on 9-25-2007 at 12:16 pm
I remember the old Apple IIe typing programs from grade school, too. The neat trick was that they didn’t necessarily track errors, but they would beep at you if you made an error.
You could achieve a heady 99 wpm (the max possible in the program) by simply typing a bunch of random letters as quickly as possible, then deleting it all (ignoring the incessant beeping while you did so) and retyping it correctly. The average speed per word/keystroke was what mattered.
Long live cheaters!
posted by Jeremy on 9-25-2007 at 12:18 pm
Typing course was mandatory in my ninth-grade junior high year. We learned on Underwood manuals. They did not have blank keyboards; the teacher watched everyone to make sure they were not looking at the keyboard. How well I remember the chant of “FFFF space! JJJJ space!” etc.! I have a very small hand, so that massive keyboard was very hard for me. The teacher kept insisting I must keep my fingers on the home keys, but I couldn’t reach the shift key if I did so! Finally one day I just had to show her. She was surprised and told me to do the best I could.
Nevertheless, I was crazy to learn to type since my dad wouldn’t buy me a typewriter until I learned to type. I got my typewriter for Christmas of 1970, a Smith-Corona Galaxie Deluxe. It actually had the “1″ and “!” key, unlike the old portables. Anyone else remember–how about you, Doc?–when you made the number 1 with the lowercase l key and the exclamation point by typing the apostrophe, then backspacing and typing the period? How about when the quotation mark was over the number 2 and the apostrophe over the number 8 and “@” and “*” were on the key next to the colon/semi-colon?
posted by Linda on 9-25-2007 at 12:23 pm
22 - Jeremy — we totally did that! Ahh, memories. Just mashing on the keyboard would absolutely max out the wpm meter, and also totally piss off the teacher.
posted by Higgins on 9-25-2007 at 12:28 pm
I always learned on a computer. I started in middle school on a regular keyboard and of course, cheated. Then my freshman year of high school I took a keyboarding class and we use blank keyboards so that we were forced to learn. So now I can type really fast without looking at the keyboard at all. And I keep my fingers on home row like you’re supposed to, but I use the pads of my fingers instead of my fingertips to type.
posted by Chelsey on 9-25-2007 at 12:30 pm
I learned typing in elementary school with typing tutor, or word commander or some other name. I actually liked the challenge of learning how to type without looking and I would force myself to see if I could remember where the right keys where. But I got up to speed in high school, when I had to type with the lights out during my 2am IRC chat conversations with my best friends so my parents wouldn´t notice I was STILL at the computer.
posted by medea on 9-25-2007 at 12:32 pm
I was in high school in the 1980 and learned on an IBM selectric…we had a room full of them…My mom told me it would be the most useful class I took in all of highschool - and she was right! (I use my typing more than I do my geometry, chemistry, history and 5 paragraph theme writing)…we had a book and a set of tapes that would play “AAA space LLL space SSS space KKK” and so on…we hated our typing teacher, she was really mean to us…but, I’ve been using typing nearly every day since then…
posted by donner on 9-25-2007 at 12:38 pm
I “learned” using the program All the Right Type in elementary school on 286’s and 386’s in the early 90’s. I say “learned” because it was using ICQ in the mid 90’s that really got me to learn how to touch-type fast.
posted by Mike on 9-25-2007 at 12:39 pm
I learned to type the Marine Corps way: They put 30 or so of us in a room with 30 or so typewriters and 30 or so ‘How to Type’ books for 8 hours a day, two weeks straight. The instructors came out every hour on the hour to administer typing tests, to be graded on the spot. The requirement was 45 wpm by the end of the two week period and remedial training for anyone who failed. Boring, but oddly effective - the first couple of days reminded me of the opening scene in 2001: A Space Oddysey…
posted by BrianD on 9-25-2007 at 12:41 pm
At some point when I was a kid (early 90’s), I had a Mario Brothers typing program. Then of course I had junior high typing class.
I type mostly the “correct” way, but I do have a few exceptions. I hit the @ with my middle finger, and z with my ring finger. For numbers, I usually use the keypad, so if I’m using a keyboard without one, I have to hunt and peck for them.
posted by Molly on 9-25-2007 at 12:42 pm
When I was a Freshman in high school (1973) I took a typing class with a friend. About the only thing I learned was that if you lifted the clip on the IBM Selectric ball, when your friend would start typing, it would shoot out of the typewriter and hit him almost dead in the middle of the forehead. Eight years later I went back to college for Computer Science. I’ve been programming for over 20 years now, without touch typing. And type remarkably fast with a mutant typing style. I use more than just two fingers. I keep the edge of my left hand anchored to the desk top, and my right hand does a lot of bouncing around on the keyboard. A co-worker says it’s very creepy to watch…
posted by Ralphie on 9-25-2007 at 12:48 pm
My Grade 9 Typing class has done me proud! As this goes back a ways, these were manual typewriters and as such, I had severe pinky strain afterwards - those A’s are brutal in repetition.
posted by TerryS on 9-25-2007 at 1:05 pm
I learned how to type at community college. I took beginning, intermediate and advanced. We learned on IBM electronic machines, and used pieces of correction tape to correct errors. We learned true “touch typing” by using a text and lots of repetition!
posted by Tamigirlrocks on 9-25-2007 at 1:10 pm
I learned to type mostly in middle school…but before I started in school, I was playing a “Typing Tutor” game at home. At school, they put wooden boxes over our hands, just like everyone else :).
My typing skills are good, however, because when I was a child I used to have to type the church’s weekly bulletin for my preacher-dad. That helped…and so did the fact that I took piano lessons for 8 years. Looking at the keyboard while you play piano is also discouraged.
And of course, I improved my typing skills by discovering the internet. Now I can amaze middle schoolers by being competent :).
posted by Becky Travis on 9-25-2007 at 1:24 pm
I remember having computer classes in elementry school (late-80’s/early-90’s) but all we did was play Oregon Trail.
I recall in middle school, having to type a 10-page report. All we had was an electric typewriter and it took me DAYS of hunt & peck to type this thing up.
I took a typing class in high school (late 90’s) where I fine-tuned my typing skills. Never caught on to the top-row numbers/symbols though. And I’m pretty sure I still use the wrong hand to type “B” and “Y”.
My typing skills are currently somewhere around 80wpm with 96% accuracy. Not bad, eh?
In high school, I had a job working at a bookstore. Two years of typing in ISBN’s will get you really skilled at 10-key number typing. I still use the number pad if I have to type any more than two numbers.
I die on a laptop!
posted by Erin on 9-25-2007 at 1:24 pm
In the summer of ‘71 before I started junior high school, I was bored and my aunt, who was a high school typing teacher, suggested that I take an old typing book and teach myself how to type with an old manual Royal machine that my parents had. The book was from the 50’s and was pretty dated for an 11 year old in 1971–it had pictures of bobby-soxers, and I was living in the age of Aquarius, the Partridge Family and the Brady Bunch. Though the book was not great, it worked–my aunt timed and coached me thoughout the summer, and in the end, I didn’t have to take typing in high school–I earned money typing papers for friends throughout junior high, high school and college. My standard question to prospective clients was, “Turabian or MLA?” While my friends were learning to type in high school, I already knew how to and used it–it impressed teachers and helped my wallet. Back then, keyboard skills were not something that teenagers learned til 10th or 11th grade, not like today where kids learn to type as soon as their fingers can reach the keys. At the time, it was almost like a game to learn how to type, but I’ve always been thankful that my aunt helped me learn how to type when I was so young.
posted by Chuck Rogers on 9-25-2007 at 1:37 pm
I learned last year how to touch type. I caught on fast, but ever since then I’v been unconsciously waggling my fingers, typing, when I read! Weird…
posted by Rubik on 9-25-2007 at 1:39 pm
I learned in middle school, with a ‘keyboarding’ class. We didn’t have boxes, but since we had to read from the screen we were discouraged from looking at the keyboard. We learned letters by row, starting with ‘home row’ (asdfghjkl;) I had nightmares about sad dads who add and lads with fads.. And I too started to visualize a keyboard when I was talking, reading or writing.
Now, I stay in practice both at home and school. I’ve also become fairly good at one-handed typing.
posted by scoobnut on 9-25-2007 at 1:45 pm
I learned (and am still learning) on a Dell PC running from 3-5 grade a program which I forgot the name of, and right now in 6th grade a program called Type to Learn.
I can touch-type pretty well, but before sixth grade I looked at my fingers. Now in computer class they make us put these black cardboard things over our hands so we can’t look.
posted by Allegra on 9-25-2007 at 1:46 pm
I learned to type from a “game” based on Asteroids - the letters would fall from the top of the screen, and you had to key the letter to blow it up before it hit bottom. I think this was around 4th or 5th grade for me, so it was in 1987 or so.
I also had a required typing class in 7th grade, on actual typewriters. Not the electric kind, which I hated because I type faster than I should and correct myself a lot. That doesn’t work when your typewriter doesn’t have a correction ribbon!
Like others have mentioned, I believe that starting piano lessons long before typing helped me a lot. Just like hitting the wrong note on the piano sounds wrong, hitting the wrong key on the keyboard feels wrong to me. To this day I can freak people out by looking at them over my shoulder and typing, and correcting my mistakes without looking at the screen. I’m glad my current keyboard is quiet, too; there was a while when I had to use a keyboard that made very loud clicking noises for each keystroke, and people who walked past my cube would stop and express astonishment that I could type that fast. (I don’t remember my wpm from the last time I took a test. Maybe in the 70s, slowing down for the sake of accuracy.)
Autocorrect has made me a much lazier typist. Does that bother anyone else? I try not to rely on it, but that gets harder the longer I use it.
posted by Rachel on 9-25-2007 at 1:59 pm
Though I had already learned to type on my mom’s Royal manual, Freshman typing was required (at least by my mom). We used both manual and electric in class, but there was no correction tape and errors counted off your time. The teacher was also my piano teacher and she was strict and very hard to please. She also dressed impeccably and had hair that didn’t move, but I digress. I was a way better typist than pianist so I strove to be the absolute best in her class just to prove that I could do something well. I made up little songs in my head to go with the exercises and still remember the tune to F-A-S-D-F (pause) J-semicolon-L-K-J. Not sure that it helped but I did end up tops in both speed and accuracy way back in 1974. Correcting typewriters and computers have rendered the perfectly typed page completely obsolete - I’m constantly correcting as I go.
posted by joanne on 9-25-2007 at 2:01 pm
Chuck’s story is similar to mine - one summer day when I was about 12 I complained to my mom that I was bored, there was nothing to do. She got out her electric typewriter and placed pieces of white adhesive tape on each key, covering the characters, and gave he her old typing book. “Here,” she said, “Learn to type. You’ll thank me some day.” By the time I took a typing class in high school, I could already type about 30 wpm. The manual typewriters we had in school had blank keys, too. I’m still glad I took a typing class, though, because it not only helped me build my speed, it also taught me the proper formats for term papers, manuscripts, formal letters, etc.
posted by Kara on 9-25-2007 at 2:02 pm
It was the late 50’s and I was 9 or 10. My sister got a typewriter for her senior year of HS. That summer, she covered the keys with red finger-nail polish so I couldn’t see the letters. Then she taught me to touch-type!
Later, I took a class when I was in Junior High School.
Both experiences have served me well — from an old standard typewriter, to electric, to Selectric, to computers!
I took a typing test (on a PC) a few years ago, and I came in at the 90-100 WPM mark. I still don’t look at the keys, but I make more spelling errors, since I know that spell-check will catch them! (even in this text box…)
posted by WizardBoy on 9-25-2007 at 2:11 pm
I’m SO glad someone else experienced typing daydreams! The summer I learned to type I had to read quickly, because if I paused on one word I would type it in my head or with my fingers on the air. I learned to type from a library book, actually. It had exercises that taught you each key. I also got better by using some typing computer game. I take pride that I can type fairly quickly and that I never have to look at the keyboard (except for numbers…I never learned the numbers!) I do make more mistakes than I probably should, but spell check helps me out there.
posted by Rosalie on 9-25-2007 at 2:20 pm
Touch typing is one of the most useful skills you will ever learn in school. It pains me to watch co-workers hunt and peck their way through an e-mail.
I took typing as a freshman in high school (1981). I think we were still using manual machines at the time.
I remember the teacher had a vinyl record that would take us through the exercises — a a a ; ; ;
We had these crazy time tests where you had to type paragraphs from a book. The actual paragraphs were kind of weird. I still remember “the audience cheered with fiendish delight.”
posted by Janix on 9-25-2007 at 2:32 pm
I learned to type on a manual machine.
The record albums told us what letter series to type and we learned to type to music. I still enjoy typing to music, the faster the beat the better I type.
posted by Pamela on 9-25-2007 at 2:33 pm
8th grade typing class, although I didn’t perfect it until college when I had to write so many papers. Now, I’m pretty standard with a bunch of mistakes - thank god for auto correct!
posted by Kim on 9-25-2007 at 2:37 pm
I learned to “type” in highschool but never got the hang of the home row and never got very good at it. Fast forward to 1999 when I finally got the internet at home and discovered “Yahoo! Chat”….and suddenly my typing skills increased exponentially!! I now type very quickly even though I don’t spend my days chatting anymore. It definitely affected where my career went!!
posted by Erica on 9-25-2007 at 2:37 pm
I learned in my high school “Personal Typing Class” circa 1975. We had IBM Selectric typewriters, but actually learned the fingering while they were unplugged. It was the best class ever in terms of a useable life skill! I also learned shorthand the same year - can’t remember anything from that class!
posted by Cyndi on 9-25-2007 at 2:47 pm
I learned on the VIC-20. I don’t remember if it was some kind of program or if I learned simply because in order to play non-cartridge or cassette-tape games, you had to actually input the BASIC program yourself, but I can’t remember NOT knowing how to type. I really miss the VIC-20, though. I’d love to get one via Ebay, but I’m afraid the scary HD-TV we have would blow it up.
My mom is the fastest typist I know - she can type upwards of 110 WPM while talking on the phone, cooking dinner, and yelling at us kids.
posted by Rachel on 9-25-2007 at 2:53 pm
I asked my nieces (ages 8 & 5) if they’re taking typing in school. It took a second for them to understand what I meant - they take ‘keyboarding’ classes.
posted by Anita on 9-25-2007 at 2:57 pm
I started using a computer at age 3 on the family Apple ][e. I loved computers. I mean, I *LOVED* computers. My older sister and younger brother didn’t seem to have my adoration for them. In 1984, we got one of the first Macs and I took to it like a moth to a flame. One day, when I was about 8, I simply realized that I wasn’t looking at the keyboard anymore. In 6th grade, teachers accused me of teaching because I was turning in typed papers instead of handwritten ones (they assumed my parents were writing them).
My typing style is bizzare, at best. I’m right handed, but I use every finger on my left hand and only my index and thumb on my right hand. My typing speed is around 127 wpm w/o errors at last test.
Yeah. I’m a freak.
posted by Eric Jacobson on 9-25-2007 at 2:57 pm
It was high school for me back in the late 70s/early 80s. Electric typerwriters thank you! I had a class that was going to be in the second half of the semester, so I decided on my own to take tying(best thing I ever did) Loved my typing teacher at Sodus Central, only problem is, she signed my yearbook in shorthand(which I wish I had taken).
Computers have made my typing better, cause I know i can fix my mistakes eaiser.
Oh - and the best typewriter ever?? An old manual one at a place of business, really never broke down..it was a relic!
posted by Brian on 9-25-2007 at 3:04 pm
I first learned to type at my Catholic elementary school with a horribly mean nun hovering over us and smacking the back of our heads if we dared look down at our fingers. That wasn’t much motivation for me to learn, soI never really picked it up. A few years later, my mom decided that my summer project would be to learn to type with Ms. Mavis Beacon. I hated it at the time, but now I am a fairly fast and accurate typist.
I use the “home row” method, but usually change it up on the ‘B’ key since I can never remember which hand is in charge of it.
posted by Lisa on 9-25-2007 at 3:18 pm
My husband suffered from frequent headaches at work. He was a hunt and peck typist…after several doctor appointments he visited a chiropractor who determined his “hunt and peck” put him in a hunched over position which translated to neck pain and the headaches. Enter “Mavis Beacon”!!! He taught himself touch-typing and the headaches disappeared!
by the way–he is a TV News Director in front of a computer all day…
posted by Lauren on 9-25-2007 at 3:33 pm
In this computer age - absolutely the most tangibly useful class I ever took was 8th grade typing.
1975.
Learned on typewriters.
Touch type.
I remember we learned row by row. Got comfortable with the home row then added qwerty and zxcv rows and lastly the numbers. I still have a hard time touch typing numbers.
posted by KJ on 9-25-2007 at 3:44 pm
As a keyboarding teacher, I can tell you that we still use the cardboard boxes (or something like it), and students still cheat. But, as a bonus, we also teach our students voice recognition. There is nothing more encouraging that watching how excited a students gets the first time they speak into a microphone and watch their words appear on the computer screen.
posted by Kristin on 9-25-2007 at 4:23 pm
We had typing in 9th grade. First half of the year on typewriters, second half on computers. That was the last time I’ve used, or for that matter seen, a typewriter, but I am a damn good typist as a result.
posted by Sara on 9-25-2007 at 4:33 pm
I learned to type in high school in the early ’80s. Our blue-collar school had mostly manual typewriters, but if you were really lucky you’d get to use one of the IBM Selectrics. I don’t think I know what typing method I learned, but I can still type about 90 wpm on a good day.
posted by Average Jane on 9-25-2007 at 4:40 pm
I’m an autodidact. My uncle gave me a typing book when I was in high school, and every night I practiced five or so pages until I had finished the whole book. Then I knew how to do touch typing.
posted by Kathy on 9-25-2007 at 4:58 pm
Miss Zuber’s typing class, Highlands Jr. High, White Plains, NY, 1978. A roomful of clacking typewriters, as we grudgingly learning touchtyping. d e d e, k i k i, etc. It wasn’t until I bought a Mac in 1988 that I really *got* it. Thanks, Miss Z!
posted by Becky on 9-25-2007 at 4:59 pm
I never learned to type. My father didn’t want me to take typing in high school, because he didn’t want me to have a “fallback” career as a secretary. I had a typewriter in college, but graduated without ever seeing, much less using, a computer.
So I hunt and peck, at about 50 wpm. Just learned by doing.
posted by Miss Cellania on 9-25-2007 at 5:07 pm
I learned the location of the typewriter keys (on a manual typewriter no less) in Coach Margolis’ summer school class during the period between 6th and 7th grade. He had a huge number of idiotic “skill development” exercises that involved typing xxxxx—-,,,,,ccccc and the rest of the keys in various combinations so that we ended up with pictures of various sports themed objects like a football or a goal post or whatever. I never did learn to really type fast until I became a user of the computer…now I touch-type and type like the wind.
posted by Karan on 9-25-2007 at 5:22 pm
Hm, I had some ‘computer classes’(often called ‘keyboarding’) from I think second grade up until sixth. Those consisted mostly of playing Oregon Trail on the Apple ][e.
Had a required keyboarding class in about tenth grade, which I skipped until they let me drop it for art.
When I really learned, though, was after high school, when I got AOL. You’ve got to be fast to keep up with multiple IMs at the same time! So I ended up with a hunt and peck variant. I have to look, but I use a few extra fingers here and there.
posted by Bo on 9-25-2007 at 5:23 pm
I taught myself to type when I first started using a computer (though I don’t remember the year, exactly.) I was pretty much all over the place, and generally used my right hand for the top rows and my left hand for the bottom.
When I took a typing class in fifth grade, my teacher got mad at my bastardized form of typing, and I had to relearn it.
Now I use an interesting combination of the two. I can’t do home keys very well, but I tend to have my hands sticking to their own sides of the keyboard.
Thanks to my previous typing experiences, I can touch type with either of my hands or a combination of the two. It’s fairly helpful when I’m drinking something at the same time.
posted by Anne on 9-25-2007 at 5:25 pm
I took several typing classes throughout school but I really learned to type in late high school when the Instant Message was born. It continued into college and now I am a touch typer. Now I have decided to tackle the Dvorak layout and it has sent me back to my hunt and peck days.
posted by Will on 9-25-2007 at 5:33 pm
I learned how to type on an electric typewriter in the fourth grade in 1987. The class would work an hour a day for two weeks on typing. The method was simple drills, like “jkjkjkl;l;l;”
In 1999, I re-taught myself how to type with speed and accuracy, and touch typing, by communicating in chatrooms. In a debate room, one had to type quickly and without error, to avoid looking like a fool.
Just last year I learned how to do 10-key typing in an employment skills workshop.
posted by Noemie on 9-25-2007 at 6:27 pm
I am completely self taught. I have used computers from a very early age, but was almost exclusively a two finger “hunt and peck” typist. As the volume of material I put out increased, having my eyes flit around the keyboard caused significant eyestrain - so I took an interest in typing without looking at the keyboard. Now I type rather quickly, with few errors, but in a very unorthodox four finger manner.
I am going to make it a priority for my children to take typing classes. It’s a necessary skill, and there is no reason to struggle with it like I did.
posted by Bob on 9-25-2007 at 6:46 pm
I’ve learned it in school (end of 1980’s) on a electric typewriter with type ball - these machines hummed like a power generator.
So, the whole typing class did simultaniously that: asdf asdf …and then jklö jklö [german keyboard] and when we were all at the end of the line we pushed the wagon so it jumps to the new line. That was a noise really like in a machine factory or so.
With other words: I really learned it the classic way - and I can type fast, I think (approx. 250-300 strokes a minute) without too much mistakes.
[Sorry for my poor English]
posted by roland on 9-25-2007 at 7:18 pm
I learned in junior high, in the mid-80s…manual typewriter! Yikes!
Nowadays, my special education students (visually impaired) have some great programs to help them learn…I really like the Talking Typer program. They put on headphones and the little man in the ‘puter instructs them on what to type. I help them keep their fingers positioned and off they go!
posted by Patti on 9-25-2007 at 7:22 pm
Wow, lotsa comments here! Nice!
Higgins — I remember that class, and I was one of those cheaters. I’m a fast but unorthodox typist, and when Mr. Percival stood over me with his hand on that box, I got my first and only “F” on a test in school. I think it was a 36%. Ouch.
posted by Ransom on 9-25-2007 at 7:27 pm
Learned to type traditionally on a typewriter in the early ’80s and a PC in 1989 when I got my 1st (Packard Bell) PC, but NEVER can get the “thumb thing” for text messaging. It takes me like 5 minutes to send a simple phone text message and I hate that. Any ideas other than buying one of those phones with an actual keyboard? I have a KRAZR.
posted by Carey on 9-25-2007 at 8:15 pm
I’m of the very recent generation (15), but I had nearly the same experience. In elementary school we learned to type on some really old PowerMacs with a program called “All the Right Type”. We used the same boxes, too. I was such a cheater and thought that I could never learn my keys until one day when I realized I was just looking at the keyboard out of habit.
posted by Kris on 9-25-2007 at 8:19 pm
I remember those j-u-j’s from typing class 50 years ago at Boca Ciega High, St. Petersburg. First day of class the teacher stopped at my desk and said, “You play the piano, don’t you?” I thought she was psychic–I did play–until she explained it was the way I held my fingers on the keyboard.
posted by Wayne on 9-25-2007 at 8:26 pm
Anyone else here ever type on a telex machine? I could already type about 85 wpm on a regular typewriter when I got my first job as a telex operator. Now there’s a machine that will slow you down. Not only were the keys very clumsy and ker-chunky, there was no “shift;” you had to hit a LTRS key before you typed text, and FIGS if you needed to type numbers or symbols. I did get up to about 60 wpm before Western Union 86′d their telex service.
posted by Kara on 9-25-2007 at 8:51 pm
In the 1970s, in high school, I taught myself one summer from my sister’s high school typing textbook. I didn’t want to waste the time taking it for credit. My father had an old Royal manual at home, and I covered the keytops with circles of first aid tape to mimic the blank key ones used in typewriter class.
I got nearly through the book over the summer, stopping before the special characters that are the shifts of the number keys; I still have to look at them. But I did learn to type fast enough to help with my job as a newspaper reporter, which became my career.
The skill carried over when my various papers moved to computers rather than typewriters, and I type looking at the screen, not the keys, to this day.
posted by Beth on 9-25-2007 at 8:59 pm
In the 1970s when I was too sick to go to school but not sick enough to stay in bed, my mom would stick me in front of the Smith-Corona (electric, thankfully). She was a former typing teacher and had kept all of her textbooks. I pretty much taught myself out of the books. As long as I was typing, she knew where I was and what I was doing…
posted by Sasquatch on 9-25-2007 at 11:04 pm
I started using instant messenger when I was about 11 years old, so I learned how to type quickly and efficiently because of that - what’s the point of instant messaging if you can’t type fast? I never took any typing classes, or computer classes for that matter. In high school, my peers and I knew more about computers than our teachers.
posted by weeble warble on 9-25-2007 at 11:43 pm
I learned to touch-type when I was 10 years old, inspired to write fiction by my dear old mother (now deceased). It was on an Olympia QWERTY typewriter with PICA hammer bars as opposed to what I later learned on: IBM Selectric II.
When I was 15, I knew that I would want a career working in an office environment, so I took typing lessons on the IBM Selectric II. The machine was lickety split and greased lightning at the time. In my first week of instruction I was rated at 42 words per minute with 98% accuracy.
Within six months, I was typing at a blazing 80 words per minute and was subsequently nominated to take part in a state-run typing competition.
Keep in mind I was only 16 years old when doing this. I cracked my knuckles (something my typing teacher hated with a passion) and cranked out a whopping 120wpm with 0 errors!
The teacher was blown away with excitement but distraught when I refused to let my entry go to the competition. Reason? All my competitors were girls and I did not want to be classified as a “girly boy” or whatever else my cruel classmates would conjur.
My penalty: the fastest typest was in my grade and she hit 105 wpm with 2% errors and won the prize: an electronic Franklin dayplanner and dictionary.
If I had a time machine I would go back and enter the competition, but that’s hindsight.
The nice thing about fast typing? In IT, if you can show off a bit with fast and accurate typing, it wins over trust (especially with office workers). The really neat thing is much of my typing was actually used during the Microsoft MS-Dos 2.1 through 6.22 days, so if I REALLY wanted to impress everyone, I’d rip out DOS commands with simple entries like:
cd \
cd temp
dir *.* /s
xcopy c:\dos\*.* c:\temp\*.* /s /e /c /h
Or my favorite: attrib *.* -r -a -s -h
It was a fun icebreaker and would come in very handy in 1990 when I– here comes the funny part– went to work for Kelly Services and my first assignment was for Fitzgerald’s Casino in Reno as a:
“Well hi there young man, how may I help you?”
“I’m uh, I am from Kelly services, uh, to…”
“Your kidding,” he said looking over his spectacles.
“No… I’m not kidding.” Then I blushed. “I’m a Kelly Girl…”
Years later, I make great money and I love to tell stories about by first office jobs as a Kelly Girl… woo hoo!
posted by Ray on 9-26-2007 at 12:05 am
I had typing/computer class in elementary school in the late 80’s, early 90’s. That “forgotten” Apple ][e typing program was most likely PAWS, where you guided this cat through word drills. But yeah, Oregon Trail was really pervasive, as was this Muppets game. I’m now remembering that we had a couple Apple ][c (or something) which were 8-color. I was jealous of the kids that got to sit at those.
posted by Michael on 9-26-2007 at 12:06 am
My parents had an Tandy computer when i was a kid in the 80’s (omg remember when you had to boot the OS on a 5 1/4 floppy!!!)
Well computer games were pretty prehistoric back then, but one game that we did have was MasterType, which was a learning typing game. Your little spaceship was in the center, and different letters would fly out of the corners to attack you. The faster you typed, the higher your score.
Myself and my older brother were very competitive, so I learned how to touch type continually trying to best his high score.
Thanks to Mastertype and a life in front of a computer, 20 years later I can still type >80 WPM.
Actually i think being able to touch type is a really good life skill, especially in the computer age.. when i have kids, i have to find a good typing program so they can teach themselves too :)
posted by Leeenda on 9-26-2007 at 2:33 am
I do some odd hybrid thing using all my fingers but the pinkies (except to shift, enter, and the like). And I don’t keep my hands on the home keys. The layout in my head is good enough that I don’t need to.
posted by Aemi on 9-26-2007 at 5:46 am
Wow! Look at all the comments, all of them interesting, and some of them surreal.
Yes, I recall creating certain punctuations by getting creative with the typewriter - like typing a “l”, then backspacing and rolling the platen up a bit to put a period under it for an exclamation point. Had forgotten that trick until somebody mentioned the early keyboard designs.
FWIW: my dad was somewhat opposed to me taking a typing course. He thought it was “sissified”. He put his foot down when I wanted to take dancing lessons; was sure I’d end up gay - “faggot” was the term he used, although I don’t say that word. Regardless of his feaars/opinions I turned out hetero.
Funny thing about learning to type - my keyboard skills, both QWERTY and piano - gave me the opportunity to make more money in an hour than he made in a week. I’m a musician & computer tech, retired from the latter because I refuse to try to keep up with all the “advances” in technology, although for some reason folks with legacy machines running ADA, COBOL and FORTRAN love me and keep giving me money to fix their programs. The Y2K bug provided me with enough cash to retire.
Dad’s long dead, but I hope that wherever he is he has an opportunity to reflect on his short-sidedness.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved him and learned many valuable lessons about life, living it, and how to be a gentleman in an un-gentle world.
Never took the dance classes, tho, and as a result have not only two left feet, but two uncoordinated left feet. I’ve had partners ask me what I’m muttering when we two-step. I’m counting “one-two-one-two-three”.
posted by Doc on 9-26-2007 at 7:50 am
Gradually built up speed from all those years of IRC, no hunting and pecking for me anymore!
posted by soops on 9-26-2007 at 8:43 am
I may be the only one here who learned the way I did- years of various computer programs, Mavis Beacon and the like, I was still having trouble with the Home Row thing.
A teacher in 8th grade revolutionized my typing: She taught typing as an alphabet with a sort of mnemonic chant to it-
I still remember “A, reach for B, CDE, F-reach-G” and so on. That worked almost instantly! I think it’s a method designed for dyslexic students. Genius!
Now, of course, the flipside: I typed so fast keeping up with IMs on AOL, that I gave myself RSI in college…. now I use a really strange keyboard- Kinesis Modern. It’s like the inverse of the Microsoft ergo keyboard, but so comfy!
posted by E on 9-26-2007 at 9:15 am
I remember some old typing programs back in elementary school on those Apple ][e machines, but my system didn’t start training us in earnest until middle school. By then we’d graduated to the almighty Macintosh LC.
I still remember a lot of the articles the teaching programs used for drills. One was about Secretariat, another was about fiber-optics.
Then in my freshman year of high school, it ends up that keyboarding is a mandatory elective (oxymoron if I ever saw one). The goal of the class was to get everyone to 20 wpm by the end of the year. By then the Internet was just starting to get popular, and I’d discovered the fun of Telnet chat rooms. So on the first day of class they gave us a test, and I scored 25 wpm. I asked the teacher if I could be excused from class for the year, and she refused. So I spent most of the class just playing Solitare (now we’d graduated to Windows 3.1) instead.
posted by Katherine on 9-26-2007 at 9:42 am
I learned to type as a Freshman in high school in 1983 on a manual typewriter. Amen for computers since you don’t have to use math to figure out how to center a line. The thing that sticks with me most is the pictures we created during the holidays. You didn’t know what the picture was until about half way through. For example, the first line would be 20 spaces, then the letter o 10 times, then 20 spaces, etc. Anyone else have this too?
posted by Kim on 9-26-2007 at 10:26 am
We were poor growing up and as ridiculous as it sounds, I learned off a sheet of paper. My mother drew the keys on a sheet of paper and rolled
up the top half of the paper.
The rolling of the paper would cause it to “click” whenever you hit the “keys.”
I can still hear my mom chanting “a,s,d,f,j,k,l,semi!”
I never needed to hunt and peck after that!
posted by Kimberly on 9-26-2007 at 12:05 pm
I learned how to type in 9th grade, when I started playing Warcraft 3 online. No joke, when you’re in a game with three random teammates trying your best not to die to the other team’s rush you learn to type. And you learn it fast, after all who has time to yell for help when your town hall’s burning?
posted by Ben on 9-26-2007 at 2:56 pm
I taught myself to type by sheer willpower, haha. I was twelve (almost eighteen now) and sick of typing slowly, so I just stuck with it and now I type upwards of sixty wpm. It’s brilliant. I probably don’t type exactly properly but it doesn’t matter to me so long as I get the words out. And I’ve already written a 75,000 word novel!
posted by Rylla Smith on 9-26-2007 at 3:26 pm
I too had the ubiquitous middle school keyboarding class. They had to resort to putting stickers on my keys to keep me from looking. Don’t really remember the drills save for one: There is a carton of jade on this dock. I got so I could type only that sentence at about 50 wpm. Now between endless MUD-ing in college and some legal secretarial work, I can average about 75 wpm as a touch typist.
posted by Beanie on 9-26-2007 at 3:44 pm
I “learned” how too type in grade 3 circa 1993 through the almena method. my favorite part of that was learning all the little mnemonics for each finger:
Quick Ask Zoe
What Stops X-rays?
Even Dogs Can’t
Red Fish Vanish, Then Grow Bigger
Yaks Hear Noises, Under Jack’s Matress
I Keep
Over Long
Peanuts! Peanuts!
While I did not find this to be of much help, I certainly enjoyed chanting along to the repetitive video.
posted by Owen on 9-26-2007 at 3:55 pm
Type-to-Learn program in elementary school and 6th grade. We had orange rubber/plastic molds that fit over the keys so we couldn’t see the letters. I hated the program but today can type really well, mostly because school papers are entirely done on the computer now. Handwritten things are not accepted. I type sort of the proper way and sort of not. I usually am somewhere near the home row but I use the wrong fingers for the keys in the other rows, and tend to shift my hands a couple keys to the left or right of where they should be.
posted by sporkk on 9-26-2007 at 4:02 pm
I learned to type on a forties-era Remington Rand. No, I’m not seventy…I’m a 37-year-old who started collecting antique typewriters when I was ten. I like all sorts of mechanical antiques - clocks, sewing machines, cameras, etc. - but that typewriter was my first. I paid a buck for it at a yard sale, and taught myself to touch-type on it. Yeah, ok…I’m a geek. But I’m ok with that.
posted by Dave on 9-26-2007 at 5:11 pm
I had typing programs from very early on (including both Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and Mario Teaches Typing. I didn’t really “learn” how to type from these.
In fifth grade, my Teacher has a lab in his classroom that was full of Apple IIc and IIgs computers (this was about ten years ago). Just about every week we would do a session of typing practise on these. There was also an older volunteer man who would have us type “The Quick Brown Fox” and “ABC” repeatedly on IBM Selectric IIs. That probably got me to remember where all the keys were on the keyboard and to place my fingers on the home row.
It was not until my junior year of High School, however, that I learned to type properly. This is mostly because I would write at night, in the dark, on an old 486 laptop. Said laptop was rather finicky, and the keys would only work when pressed straight down from above. When done right, the thing worked amazingly well. When not pressed down right, woe unto thee, for the keys would stick.
Now I use a keyboard with mechanical keys that makes a lot of noise when I type and feels really good. There was a stint a few months ago where I reordered all my keys so they would be in Dyvorak, and learned that in the span of about a month, but I have since forgotten it.
posted by Steve on 9-26-2007 at 6:03 pm
Like others, my family had computers from early on and programs like Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. I was unmotivated about learning to type properly, however, until my dad very generously offered myself and my brother $100 each if we could learn to touch-type a certain number of words per minute (I forget now how many). I was about 13 at the time; I’m 25 now and type about 70 wpm, so even though I probably wasted the money on Bop magazines and CDs, I’m grateful that my dad was willing to offer that incentive because I feel it’s been extremely beneficial to me.
posted by Celeste on 9-27-2007 at 1:51 am
I learned to type during a semester long class in my Freshman year of high school… on an electric typewriter.
I had a Commodore 64 at home, but had to watch my fingers.
I did very well in typing class and went on to hone my skills in a year of BASIC and a year of Pascal, still in high school… and on a proper computer, not an electric typewriter.
I touch type using the standard method with the standard “home keys.”
I had a roommate who could touch type on her laptop with one hand–always impressed me.
posted by Jason on 9-27-2007 at 2:26 pm
Hi,
Just keep typing. You’ll learn how to type fast just as everyone else. It may seem scarier than it actually is.
I’ve learned to touch typing fast years ago. I keep asking myself every day, how fast can i type? Indeed, the more I type the faster it goes.
English’s not my native language, but I can type in English some 80 + words per minute. In my first language - a whole lot faster.
You just have to learn it once and practice a lot. It becomes a second nature.
If you start today, in just a few weeks, asking yourself again, how fast can i type? you may be surprised to find out that you’re typing much faster than you did just a short time ago.
posted by Jacob on 12-31-2007 at 3:50 pm