h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Following a long discussion in my office...

When I went to school I remember the girls being taught 'secretarial skill', ie. typing and shorthand... This stopped shortly after I arrived at the school and the typewriters were consigned to the scrapheap... Two years later the classroom was fitted out with nice shiny new BBC micros.

Ok, so the secretarial skills course was completely sexist, but nowadays, being able to touch-type must be the one of the most useful things you can learn (How many jobs nowadays don't involve the use of a computer at some stage?)... why don't they teach it in schools and how did you learn how to type?

Learning to type would have been darn useful to me. But I guess after 15 years or so of random poking at the keyboard with just two to three fingers, it will be impossible for me to unlearn the bad habits

I estimate that last posting took me around 2 minutes to type...

I started off here:

load jetset ,8,1

and worked up from there. I can managed aroung 50 wpm with a 95% accuracy, mistakes are usually made by my poor use of the English language

Liam.

Yahoo chat has a lot to answer for...although I don't touch type I stare constantly at the keyboard...don't know if that is really bad or not but I can usually remember a few words back if I mess up. The only problem with typing in chat rooms is that speed and cmprehension come a lot higher than capitalisation and punctuation.

Typing out bad BASIC games from ZX Spectrum magazines and said computers text adventure games. I would still not describe it as 'touch typing' though and I imagine the delete key or backspace key is amongst the most common.

Real speed was acheived in typing out the whole of my PhD thesis though. That was intense!

I have Mavis Beacon typing tutor (I think on the zx spectrum) to thank Also, my nan always told me to learn typing and shorthand as there was always work for a girl with typing and shorthand. She was quite progressive for a woman of her generation - she still saw secretarial work as the highest pinnacle a girl could aim for but she wanted to make sure I didn't have to rely on any man to keep me...

A few years ago I did some very dull temping work where I had to type out lots of letters. I cut two hand holes in a cardboard box and put it over the keyboard so that I COULDN'T see the keys - my touch typing got a lot better very quickly!

These days I usually look at the keys while I type although I don't have to all the time - will have to get a new cardboard box...


k

The traditional typewriter-based touch typing courses concentrate on the main block of letters, digits and shift and space. Modern computer word-processing requires much more use of arrow keys, insert/delete, function keys and the mouse, so being able to touch type might not be as much of an advantage as you think.

I can touch type, but I never learnt it, so it is not the standard way. I just picked it up from twenty years of poking at a QWERTY keyboard.

I'd be forced to disagree with you there Gnomon, Ok, there are a few extra keys on a PC keyboard than there are on the old manual typewriter I learnt to type on, but once you know where all the standard keys are then it's easy to find the others without too much hassle...

Supplementary question, anyone out there know where I can download a freeware or shareware typing tutor that has exercises for testing your speed. I really haven't a clue how fast I type, the last time I tested it was nearly 10 years ago and I've got a lot faster since...

My school didn't teach typing itself, but in 6th form, if you had a double free period on Friday afternoons, you were allowed to go to the local technical college and do RSA Stage 1 Typing. I did that - largely to get away from the school building at the end of the week, and to take advantage of a rare opportunity of freedom, and nosing into what other educational establishments look like.

I was terrible at it! But managed to scrape a pass, and although I do keep my eyes pretty much on the keyboard, I can lift them occasionally, and I know that I can type quite fast. Using Word, combined with Spellcheck, I'm happy with my wash!

But it has struck me that at the time (over 20 years ago) I never realised just how useful a skill that typing course was going to be.....

I learnt to type in the lower 6th at school. Took my RSA Stage one and passed with merit

I'm another who does look at the keyboard now, even though I could probably type well enough without, I just think I'm quicker and safer looking!

I took a course in school. I can't remember what it was called but I though it was about learning about computers. Turned out to be only about learning typing. But still better than the alternatives I think. So for a year I spent the last two hours on fridays trying to learn how to type. But I sort of forgot how to do it again, and even after working a year in a call center, I am again typing with two fingers.

I picked up a copy of Mavis Beacon from a magazine cover disk a while back and sat down with it. I'd previously attempted to learn, Mum had told me the basic idea because she did typing when she was at school, but I'd never really got the hang of it. In the end it didn't take very long, although I slowed down at first because I'd developed my own style which involved largely the first two fingers, lots of looking at the keyboard and was probably exceptionally bad for my fingers.

I now touch-type, and since I got an ergonomic keyboard I've had to unlearn a couple of bad habits I'd picked up when typing on a normal one for ages after I learned. It's a very nice keyboard... But anyway, I can type English prose without looking at the keyboard at all, and quite a lot of program code too, although prose generally goes a bit faster. This is of course only because it doesn't have as much punctuation in it. Oh, and I tend to have to think about program code more!

"This stopped shortly after I arrived at the school and the typewriters were consigned to the scrapheap... "
Cause and effect, whisky?

Never learned touch typing, again mine typing was learned in my early teens typing in Z80 machine code games from magazines on my trusty old Amstrad CPC6128. the hours I spent at that just so one multi-coloured blob could chase another round the screen.....

I was going to ask about those ergonomic keyboards, those are the ones split into 2 keyboards right? Are they any easier / faster for touch typers, or for non-touch typers.

I tend to stare at the keyboard and usee 3 fingers on each hand plus thumbs for the space bar.

I'm totally self taught don't know how many fingers I use but at the test for this job I was recorded at at very respectable 45 words per minute which a lot of people can't acheive by touch typing.

I did try to learn to touch type but the whole experience was too much so I reverted to typing the way I knew how.

I learned to type in a windowless mobile home that was converted into a computer lab in a dirt field behind my grade school. Rather creepy, now that I stop and think about it.

My typing might be a bit crap (at the temping agency I came out at 27wpm - with 100% accuracy tho so it wasn't all bad...with a spellchecker its more like 45wpm), however my data input is frighteningly fast - I can touch type phone/id numbers on the number pad easily and on that test I scored 100 entries (number strings) per minute at 98%...but I don't know why I'm good at data input I've never done it for more than a couple of months as a job - and even now I prefer typing (would be much quicker if I didn't change my mind at the end of each paragraph and edit it down to a sentence).

Data inputs is always a nice no brainer though if I'm ever feeling fed up I can get myself set up with a big empty spreadsheet and a long list of numbers and tap away happily for hours.

In about third grade (age 8-9) I learned to type using the absolutely horrid "type to learn" program available for the archaic apples my school had. Of course, I still used the hunt-n-peck method for as long as I could after that - I learned just enough to be able to get through levels so that the teacher wouldn't think I was slacking off.

But I really learned to type around 7th or 8th grade when my family finally bought our first computer - before that I had little need to touch type or type at all, truth be told.

And thanks to IM programs and h2g2, I've had to learn to type FAST and accurately if I ever want to do anything other than those things.

I use an MS ergonomic keyboard at the moment, it did take some getting used to and I don't think it's a great deal quicker than a normal keyboard (except that now I've got to slow down when I go back to a 'normal' keyboard), however, they are a lot more comfortable to use over extended periods....

Check this one out for the ultimate in ergonomic keyboard design... I'd love to try one out, but the price scares the heck out of me...
[Unsuitable link removed by Moderator]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/dot_life/2326077.stm

non existant keyboards now too....don't think I'd like this though - especially in a bright room I don't think you could see all the letters - plus I would miss my home, end, delete and break keys