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Weekend Open Forum: How did you learn to type?
I grew up in a generation where computers and the Internet were just starting to become a “big thing.” As such, there were multiple computer-related courses as electives in middle and high school. As a tech geek at heart, I signed up for the majority of courses offered although there were only one or two typing classes that I recall.
In these classes, the teacher would place a cardboard box over the keyboard to help you learn the home row keys, the most basic of typing skills. Much more fun, however, were the typing games we were allowed to play. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing still stands out as the single game that helped increase my typing speed and accuracy while competing against fellow classmates for the highest score.
While these classes certainly helped to put me on the right track, I feel that I got the most practice from wasting the nights away in chat rooms. I’d stay up all hours of the night chatting on my Web TV (this was before I had a PC) and loved every minute of it. I specifically remember using the wireless keyboard while laying in bed with the lights off so I wouldn’t be able to see the keys. As you can imagine, there was plenty of trial and error there.
With this weekend open forum we want to hear about how you learned to type. Did you teach yourself, learn in grade school or college or perhaps you still haven’t mastered the task?
User Comments: 72
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Back in the 80s, my father tried to convince me to learn typing on a 'typewriter' but luckily I always found an excuse not to do so
. So I learned to type on an XT machine with two 5 1/4" FDDs. -
Mavis Beacon. Had hours of fun with that starting from around the year 2000 I guess.
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From the typewriter, to the key board!!! Installed Mavis Becon for my siblings!!!! But on my side maybe it was Poke and hope... ohhhh
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I'm using Colemak. That's also where my nickname comes from. Google it and you'll see what I mean.
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IvanAwfulitch said:
I guess Techspot has no sense of humor if they'll delete a joke post filled with nonsense in a "learning to type" open forum. I guess "open forum" isn't as open as it would suggest.
I learned to type through playing piano. You just develop a rhythm once you know where the keys are, and you can achieve keystrokes that are as fast, if not faster, than the old "asdf jkl;" finger placement.
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two words: MSN Messenger
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Sarcasm said:
Mario teaches typing.
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I learned just by typing random stuff no real learning methodology but chatting during online gaming that's where i gained the speed now kind of the fastest typer around my friends.
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Tekkaraiden said:
Grade 9 keyboarding class on an old electric typewriter with a reallt hard to press spacebar. Two years later they replaced the typrwritters with re-purposed 286's and they moved the rest of the school to 486/Pentiums.
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davislane1 said:
Learned to type doing homework assignments and using some typing programs when I was a little kid. My parents thought that, back in the 90s, computers were going to be where it's at moving forward, so they loaded me and my siblings up on computer stuff... Good call, no?
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I got into computers via early 90s PC gaming so there was lots of config.sys/autoexec.bat modification. When you repeatedly type stuff like "set blaster=P220 I5 D1" and "files=30 buffers=40" repeatedly, typing becomes second nature to you very quickly.
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In high school, 10th grade (1973), the machines . . . IBM Selectrics. My dad worked for IBM and I still have the Selectric he got for me before I left for college.
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Renrew said:
I was educated in the Eagle method and still follow it to this day----that's where you hunt your key, swoop down and peck at it--works for me.
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When I was a kid my Dad bought the family a Macintosh. I learned to type with 4 fingers when using the old Mac. Basically the "pointer" and "middle" fingers on each hand. That went on until the first year of high school. Then I took basic computer class. Old School. We were still running DOS. The teacher taught the entire class to type "properly" with all 10 fingers and I picked up on it very quickly. Today I'm one of the fastest and most accurate typist I know. I won't set any speed records worldwide but I do well enough. Funny thing is, today my dad types with his 4 fingers the way I used to.
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I was lucky, I got my subject selection form in late when I was in year 9 (14 years old back in 2001). I missed out on my choices and got stuck in a computer class, the first thing we learned was touch typing. The teacher was extremely strict and taught us well. I then spent the next 5 or 6 years on MSN messenger typing correctly (heaps of practice). This forum got me interested in testing my speed so I just googled a speed-test site and had a go - 89WPM and I wasn't even warmed up.
Touch typing is great, not having to look down, then back up and refocus your eyes saves on headaches I think. It only took 2 weeks to learn, I recommend it to everyone who asks.
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with MS-DOS
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treetops said:
We had a computer class in middle school, I believe it was 4th grade, it was required. Im 29 so yeah that was like in 1993. We learned to type with a program\game, I think it had a little dude running and a word would come up and you typed it as fast as you could which would make him jump the word or something. I loved typing with the eraser on my pencil but my computer teacher frowned upon it
. We learned the foundation of computers, played the oregon trail, did some dos stuff it was fun. Really though most of my typing skills come from online gaming.just did a words per minute test im at 45 meh
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I took a high school typing class in 1971.
There were 60 girls in the class and 2 boys.
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Having to type in my own games on a Commodore 64 when I was a kid.
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i learned through lots of aim fights. considering I'm only a teen now, i got really into computers at 4, simply because they were in my blood. I didn't do much typing until about 10, and over the years I've gotten faster. I don't have super great accuracy, but I wanted to be like my older siblings who I thought could type an essay in a minute haha.
lots and lots of practice. and lots and lots of trial and error. I still can't get a touchscreen right, but I'll get there someday. I need the physical keys to know where my fingers are, and all my touchscreens have different keyboards. gah
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matrix86 said:
I learned in a typing class in middle school. The first 2 or 3 days was actually teaching us about the components of a computer and their functions. After that, it was all about technique. Half way through the semester, once we had learned our way around the keyboard, we went to touch typing. We had this dividers that went over our hands so we couldn't see.
I don't do proper anymore, though. I have my own style that's easier for me.
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Booting into MS-DOS instead of 95 for the (typing) fun of it.
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treetops said:
Gypsies
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I learned how to type in my Business Applications class during my freshman year in high school. I had typing classes in middle school, but they were utterly useless as with all the classes because the school was a joke.
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I took a 9 month typing class in high school and I still can't type numbers too well (they use the 10 key structure anyway) and symbols were all different. We actually had 1 month on manual typewriters. This was in '75 when computers were not popular yet, but the next year I learned computer programming on an hp2000 timeshared mini in basic and officially we programmed it on pencil drawn cards--not even a keypunch--, but used the terminal occasionally. Typing class came in handy the second year of college when they installed wylbur with dumb terminals and moved everyone off their keypunches and of course in my computer career. Ironically, my brother just bought an hp-2000-412nr laptop. Deja vu.
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