How did you learn how to type?

Nevyn

In convent school on a very old manual typewritter, means I do have a rather heavy hand on modren keyboards.

Crumble Froo

my mam was a receptionist/secretary before she had me, and we had this big old computer, all DOS, i remember her showing me the basics and me spending ****ing hours on some non-typing programme typing out some story about a train from a kids book, and the thing wouldnt actually had a limit on how much it would let me type and i never did finish it. i think my mam actually printed it out and has it kept somewhere, i think i was about 4/5/6 years old at the time. always been quite a quick typist (though im lazy now and never arse correcting spelling mistakes, and arthritis has kicked into my fingers making it particulaly bad when it's cold/wet out, and due to borked ligaments, capital letters hurt...), and did go through a period where i would get lunch bought for me in exchange for typing up mates' essays for college

edit: though we did do 'typing tutor' for a while in 5th class-ish.. didnt make a difference to my typing at all, and i dont think all that many people figured it out anyway.

monkeyfudge

Dudess wrote: »

Back to this: is that really possible?

Now I emphasise I've no doubt you're a very fast typist but 145 wpm is about 60 words more per minute than I can type and I can't imagine myself getting significantly faster. Faster sure, but 60wpm more? It just seems like sparks would come out of the keyboard or something... Forgive me, I'm not being cynical, but it just seems impossible!

It is pretty damn high alright. The world record holder is 150 wpm over a sustained period I believe. And that's on DVORAK as QWERTY is crap. But of course we're all way too used to QWERTY these days to change.

Nevyn

monkeyfudge wrote: »

It is pretty damn high alright. The world record holder is 150 wpm over a sustained period I believe. And that's on DVORAK as QWERTY is crap. But of course we're all way too used to QWERTY these days to change.

Which is a shame DVORAK is a lot better of a system but it's harder to get replacement keyboards constructed in that manner.

Rabies

Little bit of teaching at the start of the 90's in secondry school. We used some sort of fun typing prog on MACs.
Like most of my learning, I never really listened. Type with two fingers on my right hand and three on my left. Can type ok, couple of mistakes here and there but an average speed.

arybvtcw0eolkf

sueme wrote: »

145? Respect!

80 at a push here. I am touch typing though.




/brushes imaginary fluff from shoulder...

More or less the same here, but here's the ace up my sleeve..

I can read morse code and touch type (the code) at over 30 wpm

/Brushes imaginary fluff from both shoulders & gives the mirror a hi-five

watna

I learned to type at a young age by playing space quest 1, 2 and 3. There old school games where you have to type what you want the person in it to do. I just played space quest 1 there the other day. It was a VGA version that had been redeveloped to point and click format. I really missed the typing! My dad is a software developer so we always had a PC in the house growing up.

I think I can type about 70 words a minute now. Just from years of typong stuff.

BaZmO*

Myself and a few monkeys were put in a room with some typewriters and just left to our own devices.

mental07

tobiesheba wrote: »

On a pre-computer 1200 that Santa Claus bought one year when I was 'bout 9!

Me too! Not sure if mine was a 1200, but it was definitely one of the V-tech pre-computers. Definitely learned the basics from that anyway! Did a course after my Leaving Cert too. Since then I've been using computers pretty much every day so I'm pretty nifty

mental07

Pride Fighter wrote: »

I was never taught how to type in school. We just concentrated on Literacy and numbers.

Yeah I think in primary school at least it's important to focus on these things rather than things like typing - typing is something that can be taught later on in life/out of school hours, surely?

A_M101

Thaedydal wrote: »

Which is a shame DVORAK is a lot better of a system but it's harder to get replacement keyboards constructed in that manner.

Interestingly (or not), they did a study on children who'd never been exposed to a keyboard before and a huge majority developed a preference for QWERTY even though DVORAK is more ergonomically sound. There ye go!

As for me, we had regular classes on Mavis Beacon in 5th/6th class in primary school, we'd the rare situation where we had a computer for every 2 children aged 10+.
Then I'd typing classes in transition year, but we all had to do the same cursed elementary exam even though I went in to the class already a competent typer. Elementary exam was a pile of rubbish! Bitter.

Malteaser!

We did computers once a week in primary school, we never practised typing though, it was mostly just educational games.

We used Meavus Beacon then for a few weeks in TY before doing ECDL but by that stage I was already so used to by own way of typing that I never did it properly!

mathias

I learned to type from this ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Typing_of_the_Dead

Its certainly grabs your attention much better than Mavis Beacon ever would.
The cheesiest game ever , but loads of fun , and I was touch typing within a few weeks.

Jonathan

Years of computer use.

Kintarō Hattori

Back in the days of dial-up I used to use MSN Messenger alot and had to be quick to keep up with conversation with multiple contacts and also as a result of general computer use.

monkeyfudge

Thaedydal wrote: »

Which is a shame DVORAK is a lot better of a system but it's harder to get replacement keyboards constructed in that manner.

Most modern operating systems will let you change the keyboard layout to DVORAK. Sure the keyboard will look QWERTY, but you're not supposed to be looking at it any way.

It's silly that we still use a keyboard configuration that was designed around what worked for the typewriter and not what worked for a human. But old habits die hard.

Wazdakka

I learned to type playing Mechwarrior games..
You needed nearly every bloody key..

Brian

I learnt to type at middle school in the US. That, and a Runescape addiction while I was over there. A 14.4kbps connection soon killed that on arriving in Ireland. Lucky break I guess.

superfly

i have had keyboards since i was a kid but can't type for sh1t
only use 3 fingers and have to look at the keyboard
according to this i can type at 34 words a minute
http://www.calculatorcat.com/typing_test/

Hippo

brianthebard wrote: »

Mavis beacon ftw!I taught myself with this before going to uni.I can type faster than a lot of the computer nerds could,so it works.

+ 1

cython

I don't have a WPM figure for myself, but I'm pretty much self taught. I worked in a customer support office for a while, and I had to be able to type at a decent speed to note what I was being told, and eventually, I ended up being able to touch type (though I'm sure, being self taught, that I don't use the ideal fingers for each key!). That part of it probably came from the fact that it was very useful for me to be able to correct any mistakes as and when I made them.

Then going back into college for final year with a significant amount of programming and a thesis to complete only served as further training!

lucylu

Back in the day, in 4th year we had typing classes on electric typerwriters
can clearly recall the teachers screeches of "AAA space ASA space "

Fresh out of college and I did go for a interview in a Temp agency and I was asked to do a typing test, on asked how many words I could type, the 1st number off the top of my head was 80 wpm..it was more like 80 letters per minute.. Completed the test and when you made a mistake or hit the back button the stupid yoke beeped and got me all flustered ... got 35 wpm .... ...got no job from that agency

Much improved now...

Naos

Can get between 80 - 90wpm on that test Superfly, however consistently getting those scores would be hard.

EL_Loco

had a computer since a child, got taught in school also, all that "ada" times 100 stuff.

I can touch type when I want but don't do it that often. also cross over sometimes, I might concentrate on doing it properly now and see how I get on.

(this message was all touch typed )

oh yeah, and who ever it was 145wpm?? record that and stick it on youtube I'd love to see it.

barnacle

sueme wrote: »

145? Respect!

80 at a push here. I am touch typing though.




/brushes imaginary fluff from shoulder...

So am I. Zing.

I don't know if it's still that high. But I am doing computers so, one would presume that ones touch typing skillz remain.

Demonique

Mavis Beacon

Typing speed - about 50 wpm

Self taught, mostly "hunt & peck" but upto about 20 - 30wpm, most used key is the backspace....