How did you learn how to type?

geminilady · 30-07-2008 07:45PM

Tha Gopher wrote: »

Your schools taught you how to type?

Ours never did. I just got used to it.

Thought keyboards were the weirdest contraption ever and that it was sh1te that it wasnt in alphabetic order.
Can you buy an ordered keyboard?

yep we learnt it also how to do tabs they were the worse! tricky stuff they were!

yeah that would be a good idea!

PurpleBerry · 30-07-2008 07:49PM

Diploma course

Delirium · 30-07-2008 07:50PM

Learnt how to type during TY all those years ago. Think the program
was called typing tutor. Can type pretty much by touch now.

genegenie · 30-07-2008 07:56PM

Often dabbled with Pitman Typing Tutor on the good ol Commodore 64 from when I was 7ish (still have that somewhere actually, must crack it out!). Then started teaching myself touch typing in earnest when I was around 12/13 with the help of Mavis Beacon. I was an odd kid :rolleyes:

Pride Fighter · 30-07-2008 07:56PM

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

Skittles! · 30-07-2008 08:03PM

I learned to type from using chatrooms and instant messengers as a teenager. I never learned in school. I was too smart to get into the typing class. The teachers in my secondary only let the really stupid kids take the typing class to keep them out of the more serious classes like French, Biology, Accounting, etc.

o1s1n · 30-07-2008 08:04PM

ICQ.

My fastest was 99wpm. Just couldnt get that extra 1 no matter how hard I tried

R0ot · 30-07-2008 09:50PM

Always had a computer in the house learned to type out of constant use of the computer, simple as. :pac:

stevecrow74 · 30-07-2008 09:57PM

Years spent surfing the net.

the thing I hate is that some people type as if they are using their phone. its a computer and its on the internet, you don't get charged for the amount of letters you use :rolleyes:

adsgirl · 30-07-2008 10:24PM

Rapped on the knuckles with a sally rod.

Necronomicon · 30-07-2008 10:35PM

My sister was a receptionist, and she sat me down in front of a typewriter for about a month until I could touch-type. She said I'd thank her one day for it, man how right she was. I was lucky, because when I got into secondary school there didn't seem to be a whole lot of importance placed on learning, it was criminal really.

Naikon · 30-07-2008 11:09PM

Overheal wrote: »

47 WPM nowadays, I still dont type they way they teach you to

Same here bro:D
I type reasonably fast, it's just a typist will always beat me.
Bet most can't write code though:p
I type faster when not copying, because looking at a page/source
has me shifting eyes back and forth.

Never learnt anything about typing/computing in school, thought myself everything from the beginning
with no classes till I hit College. Computing is disgraceful in school education,
my old school principal happily exclaiming it as a "waste"

Why programming/Computing classes aren't introduced in school is criminal tbh.

genericgoon · 30-07-2008 11:18PM

Excessive amounts of typing done for school projects(LCVP would be a big one) on the computer. Besides that many years on the internet has helped considerably, especially from my days of typing in the dark late at night.

bealbocht · 30-07-2008 11:41PM

my mum was a typing teacher, so there were typewriters at home, but only learned the home keys, as my hands, especially my 'ikkle fingers were too small to press the "A" key
but when I got a computer, downloaded a small free program, and did all the boring exercises, and it had this game, where you had to type the sentance, while being chased by a "fish", not very exciting but , did the trick, put a good few hours into it too. Have loads of bad habits, the most recent one being, typing "if" instead of it" . (or just did it there ti , instead of it)
can (cna , another one) do 50 wpm at a push, but 35 ish suits me fine.

ImDave · 30-07-2008 11:48PM

Started using computers when I was 11/12, and havent stopped since. Best speed about 85 wpm.

Big_Mac · 30-07-2008 11:49PM

Work.

When you type as much as I do on a daily basis you don't be long learning. Have moved on way past the two finger jobs anymore

Naos · 30-07-2008 11:51PM

Always had a computer in my house as a kid.

However, making webpages with Notepad is what created the legend of a typer I am today

Dudess · 30-07-2008 11:55PM

barnacle wrote: »

Pitman typing exams... 145 wpm. 1st class.

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!

Mint Sauce · 30-07-2008 11:58PM

spend quite a lot of my working day on a computer, although my technic is nothing like the way my business studies teacher tried to teach us at school, on a type writer 13/14 yrs ago, think its the only time i've ever used one in my life

plus using a computer to type up numerious 2 to 3k word asignments at college was definetly a help

did no favours to help my spelling though

eamoss · 31-07-2008 12:34AM

Wow I have a few reasons
Mavis Beacon.
TY.
Private lessons on eclectic typewriters with 6 other fellow 12/13 years olds down in a Scumbag estate.
MSN/Chat rooms.
Now 20 and have been messing round with computers since I was about 5.

Never look at the keyboard any more, have a speed of 60WPM faster then most of my mates but I was shocked to find some of the lads doing my course (Computer Science) type with two fingers :eek: dont slag them too much as I want to rob their code

Oh yea for some odd reason I never use the right hand 'Shift' button.

Nevyn · 31-07-2008 12:46AM

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

Crumble Froo · 31-07-2008 12:51AM

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 · 31-07-2008 12:52AM

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 · 31-07-2008 02:15AM

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 · 31-07-2008 07:50AM

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 · 31-07-2008 08:00AM

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 · 31-07-2008 08:14AM

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* · 31-07-2008 08:14AM

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

mental07 · 31-07-2008 08:27AM

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 · 31-07-2008 08:33AM

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?

How did you learn how to type?

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