Members techristian Posted December 19, 2012 Members Share Posted December 19, 2012 I am. I just never bothered to learn touch typing. My wife and daughters learned it but I just never bothered. I can type up to 30 words a minute this way, because I have been doing it so long. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted December 19, 2012 Members Share Posted December 19, 2012 Not me. In my job, I have to type up a lot of material. I took a typing class way back in the 70s as a way to get a easy credit course out of the way in college - not knowing it would provide me with an invaluable skill. The quick infiltration of PCs into business offices in the 80s presented the 35-and-up execs with a real nagging dilemma. The huge layer of execs that were moving up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, being 99.9 percent white males of the old school, thought of typing as a woman's job. Something needing to be typed, well, give it to the girl at the front desk. In my experience, only a very few from that group adapted to the computer and the necessity of typing - at least before they retired. I have no way of really knowing, but I suspect that this stubborn old executive mindset had a lot to do with the huge shift where women starting taking up the bookkeeping jobs. Bookkeeping software meant sitting at a desk and "typing" so, ok, we got a box of software that says "anyone can now do bookkeeping easily and perfectly with our new amazing (cheap) software!" - give it to the girl at the front desk. I like that old Marxist idea about how the power of change lies in the "means of production" - ie, what we would now call technology. It's not 100% true 100% of the time, but it's such a major factor almost all the time. From what I read, more women are graduating with accounting degrees than men, and the trend is continuing. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted December 19, 2012 CMS Author Share Posted December 19, 2012 I managed to squeak by 10th grade by avoiding Biology. I took typing instead. We had a couple of (mechanical, of course) typewriters around the house so once I started to type competently, I was typing my school reports. I still have the urge today, sometimes, to smack the side of the monitor when I want to start a new line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted December 19, 2012 Moderators Share Posted December 19, 2012 I'm really fast and really inaccurate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rangefinder Posted December 19, 2012 Members Share Posted December 19, 2012 Eh, touch typing doesn't take much practice to learn, and it's not so much speed as just making typing effortless. Make yourself try it for a few days and you'll soon be wondering why you never bothered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rsadasiv Posted December 19, 2012 Members Share Posted December 19, 2012 Originally Posted by Lee Knight I'm really fast and really inaccurate. +1When I worked as an office temp I was pretty fast and really accurate. And if I was doing transcription regularly I could probably get that back. But typing as composition has different requirements than typing as transcription. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members CTStump Posted December 19, 2012 Members Share Posted December 19, 2012 I confess I'm one, if I wasn't I feel you all would be bored if I was able to type more proficiently.We can all be thankful for that my friend's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 19, 2012 Members Share Posted December 19, 2012 I wanted to be a writer () and beat on my folks for a typewriter for a couple years and got an entry level SCM electric (with a manual return) for my 14th birthday. I got pretty fast at four finger typing but then, in one of the Writer's Digests that I read semi-religiously, there was a two page 'course' on touch typing and I used that to teach myself. Later I improved my speed on the manual Olympias in my HS typing class. (This school district did not believe in meaningful electives -- probably since so few of their teachers had even minimal specialized knowledge. [Although the coaches apparently were pretty good at doping student athletes from what I hear long after the fact.] It was like going to high school in the Dark Ages.)While I took my first programming classes in college in the 1970s, I didn't have a computer in front of me until about 1984 (the first class in '73 used all punch cards but the second class in '79 or '80 allowed us the option of sitting at printer terminals. No CRTs). I'd been excited to try writing on a computer and I took to it immediately and barely looked back. I still have a typewriter or two buried somewhere but I haven't seen them in many years.I'm reasonably fast but not particularly accurate.I have friends and clients who can't type (including some who are writers) and it is painful watching them try to do anything on their computers. I don't even know how they get by. I guess that's why most people don't even know what the browser 'address bar' is when you talk to them. Why would they ever want to try to enter something directly when they don't even know where the letters are? Several didn't even know you COULD enter a URL directly into the browser -- they'd simply always used Google as their navigator.I'm typing this on a conventional keyboard right now. Earlier today I was beating my head against my Nexus 7 tablet trying to make a simple two short paragraph post using the Slide-It virtual keyboard app I added in -- which can use a 'slide-through' entry system similar to Swype. That speeds things up but the friggin' thing keeps trying to auto-correct even after I've laboriously typed something in a letter at a time -- you have to continually go to the 'suggestions' area to make sure it's not going to automatically change your word to something else. And Google's voice recognition may be, in the opinion of the experts, the best, but it sucks for me. [it certainly sucks MUCH much less than Vlingo, though. I'll give it that.] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members techristian Posted December 19, 2012 Author Members Share Posted December 19, 2012 I guess that I could always sense who the touch typists were. They are those that make the longest posts! Occasionally I will make a long post, but most of the time 3 or 4 lines suffice. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 19, 2012 Members Share Posted December 19, 2012 I am a fast typist and have known how to type since high school. My high school typing teacher began the class by saying, "This might be the most useful class you ever have." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members CTStump Posted December 19, 2012 Members Share Posted December 19, 2012 Originally Posted by UstadKhanAli I am a fast typist and have known how to type since high school. My high school typing teacher began the class by saying, "This might be the most useful class you ever have." Unfortunately I skipped that class and hung out with the "Stoners". I guess if I would have attended I'd be hanging out with Warren Buffet.I think I prefer you lot(As perhaps Benny Hill would say) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members veracohr Posted December 19, 2012 Members Share Posted December 19, 2012 Only with numbers. I type by touch, but I have to look at the keyboard for numbers (unless I'm using a side number keypad) and their paired punctuation. Always have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BEMUSofNthAmrca Posted December 20, 2012 Members Share Posted December 20, 2012 "hunt and peck"??? Why don't you just say "terrible {censored}ing typer"?? 30 words a minute. lol. What a waste of time. Learn how to type properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted December 20, 2012 Moderators Share Posted December 20, 2012 Originally Posted by Lee Knight I'm really fast and really inaccurate. Originally Posted by BEMUSofNthAmrca "hunt and peck"???Why don't you just say "terrible {censored}ing typer"??30 words a minute. lol. What a waste of time.Learn how to type properly. I should! I might! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 20, 2012 Members Share Posted December 20, 2012 Oh well. I did hang out with stoners. I suppose some might consider this weird. I hung out with stoners. And losers. And jocks. And surfers. And brains. And weirdo creative types. Probably the latter more than anything else, but that's who I hung out with. I hung out at snack with the stoners a lot. They congregated near shop class or up in the corner of the upper quad. Some were surfers AND stoners. Some, after all, crossed boundaries. More fun that way. Anyway, thanks!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members techristian Posted December 20, 2012 Author Members Share Posted December 20, 2012 Originally Posted by BEMUSofNthAmrca "hunt and peck"???Why don't you just say "terrible {censored}ing typer"??30 words a minute. lol. What a waste of time.Learn how to type properly. BE NICE ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members electrochrisso Posted December 20, 2012 Members Share Posted December 20, 2012 I learned touch typing for when receiving automated Morse code as a signalman in the army, we had to be able to read Morse code at up to 35 wpm, today I can type at about 50 wpm, not the Morse, I would be lucky to do 5 wpm now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philbo Posted December 20, 2012 Members Share Posted December 20, 2012 I was hunt'n'peck when I got (more correctly, built) my first computer in '79, even though I had a 9 week typing class a few years before in high school. I got pretty fast at entering thousands of bytes of hexadecimal machine code accurately after a year or two.... But it's pretty much impossible to get through school now days without learning typing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted December 20, 2012 Members Share Posted December 20, 2012 I forgot to mention that I was a temporary hire typist at a aviation private detective agency for a few months in the mid -80s. (Stolen planes and crashes were the beat.) That was the first place I used a word processor, a big ol' Wang (you should pardon the expression) that reminded me a little of a computer video arcade game. My next gig was a temporary typist at a small, failing electronics manufacturer. They'd fired their office manager and their bookkeeper and they hired a just over minimum temporary typist to fill those roles. It was interesting. I went with the core employees to their next start-up (start up gypsies) and was made office manager and then sales director. I was also the resident computer guy starting about half way through. Lotsa hats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Consume Posted December 20, 2012 Members Share Posted December 20, 2012 Sadly, I am. I can hunt and peck over 60 words a minute, so I guess it never really hurt - BUT, I am as slow as can be if I am trying to type something in from a written or typed piece of paper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rasputin1963 Posted December 20, 2012 Members Share Posted December 20, 2012 Hunt-and-peck typist here. But I'm pretty fast at it! This used to infuriate my father when I was young, because he figured that a pianist should also make a great typist. Why have I never learned?? I could use Mavis Beacon or something, no? It has something to do with the fact that I like to see EACH LETTER of a word being printed out, and I like to have the direct sensation of having caused each letter to be typed out... To translate letters into a middle-man ripple of kinesthetic finger activity has always seemed weird to me somehow, however efficient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted December 20, 2012 Members Share Posted December 20, 2012 Originally Posted by rasputin1963 It has something to do with the fact that I like to see EACH LETTER of a word being printed out, and I like to have the direct sensation of having caused each letter to be typed out... To translate letters into a middle-man ripple of kinesthetic finger activity has always seemed weird to me somehow, however efficient. Your OCD is showingActually - that is also a very useful ability, to see and focus on each letter at a time. Numbers people have to do that all the time, as math does not forgive in the way the written word does. That internet app where they give you a screen full of tightly spaced number 5s or 6s or whatever in a grid maybe 50x50 and you're supposed to find the one number "9" - I bet you would be really fast finding that.Interesting too is that what you've said here reminds me of what you've said about your sight-reading music skills. Very similar - they teach you to "keep playing even if you've made a mistake" when sight-reading, just like they do with typing. Can't do that if you are one-at-a-time registering what's on the page. But like I said, very favorable tendency for working with numbers or editing/writing scores and arrangements. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rangefinder Posted December 20, 2012 Members Share Posted December 20, 2012 Originally Posted by rasputin1963 and I like to have the direct sensation of having caused each letter to be typed out... To translate letters into a middle-man ripple of kinesthetic finger activity has always seemed weird to me somehow, however efficient. Well, "weird" would be a pianist who insisted on awareness of exactly how every finger played every note, or a guitarist who needed exact confirmation of finger position for every chord. The whole POINT of getting better at this sort of kinesthetic activity is to drive it down into the subconscious so you can concentrate on "bigger" issues (e.g., for typing, what you are trying to say, grammar, etc.). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Raymar Posted December 20, 2012 Members Share Posted December 20, 2012 I learned to type in junior high back in the early 70s, never had any idea I'd use the skill for computers which have eliminated the need for White Out(also thanks to Preview Post). I do hunt 'n' peck for the numbers and some of the other added computer function keys. That said I've never sent a text in my life, don't own a smart phone. How fast can you text with your thumbs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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