Comic Talk and General Discussion *

How do you type?
Ozoneocean at 8:57PM, Sept. 17, 2024
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I learned to type back in the before-time, using mechanical typewriters in high-school. We learned about changing ribbons and using carbon paper… Because at the time people still used those in offices! Electric typewriters were around in but they were pricey and never in schools back then… And yeah, computers with word-processing existed too but people still used typewriters.

I even grew up with one in my home! Haha!
You had to have strong fingers, be good with liquid paper and avoid the dreaded key-binding when you got a bunch of the levers that imprint the letters all tangled up XD

I never learned to touch type back then. I could never even type with more than two fingers really, though I tried my best in class and could almost manage it. At least when the teacher was watching.

These days I type with both hands without looking at the screen or keyboard most of the time… Which is why I make so many terrible mistakes haha!
I CAN touchtype just looking at the screen and not the keyboard, but my eyes keep slipping back haha!

last edited on Sept. 17, 2024 9:03PM
Genejoke at 3:05AM, Sept. 18, 2024
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Similar, I first started learning to type on a typewriter, but more so on old home computers. Didn't learn to touch type until my 20s. Like you I can type quickly without looking but accuracy isn't the best. Although I rarely do these days due to nerve damage making it uncomfortable, so I tend to type with index fingers much as anything else.
bravo1102 at 4:43AM, Sept. 18, 2024
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There was a Remington typewriter in the basement when I was a kid. Would pound on it. I actually shown the home keys by my sister in middle school when typing a paper.

In high school I took typing. I started on electric typewriters and second semester we switched to manual ones once we knew the keyboard. I took keyboarding classes when I started to teach because I knew nothing about word processing on computers.

I was typing my writing so I could do 30 wpm with one error. Still do most of my writing on a keyboard and my speed has actually gone up when I'm not wrestling with formatting for scripts.

I still type with all my fingers as my pain is in my wrists and forefinger so using the whole hand is therapeutic. It is impossible for me to text on a phone with my thumbs. My hands just lock up. I use my middle finger. The “New Jersey wave” lol.

It's really scary watching my secretary wife type. She can get up to 120 words a minute. With practice I have gotten up to 60 wpm with four errors but stay slower so every “the ” doesn't become “teh” .
last edited on Sept. 18, 2024 4:56AM
InkyMoondrop at 6:55AM, Sept. 18, 2024
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It all started when I was like seven or so and someone gifted me one of these bad girls.

To this day, I consider it the single best “toy” I've had (the remote-controlled fart machine I've found about 6 years ago would be a close second, because tormenting your friends for laughs is what life is all about).

About typing… I type with both hands, not looking at it. I like it that way.
PaulEberhardt at 8:05AM, Sept. 18, 2024
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I learned typing on my grandpa's ancient mechanical typewriter, a clunky pre-war one like those you may have seen in WWII movies (still got it somewhere, even), and to this day I get occasional puzzled comments by millennials on how hard and loudly I tend to hit those poor computer keys. Just can't get it out of my system for some reason, like many others my age or above.
Having thus developed my very own hard-hitting 5 1/2 finger method since an early age, I became quite fast, and for many years I didn't really need to look at my finger.
Then, laptops got popular and external keyboards got smaller as well, a bit too small and crammed for my rather large hands. Suddenly I had to start looking at what my fingers do again and still have to, and it all made me slower and more prone to typos. Often I'd hit something that does something I don't want this thing too, or some of what I've just written gets eaten without me noticing, and… I swear, I'd have sunk the damn thing at the deepest spot of the Elbe estuary if it wasn't so practical in almost every other respect. I'm sure I could buy something expensive that would let me get back to my old speed and accuracy, but if you were thinking of suggesting that you don't know me. 😉

By the way, IÄm now typing thus last sentence while only lopking out of the winfow and nowhere else and as fats as I can, just for laighs. Condiser yourself challenged to do the dame, no cheating and no coreecting typos aftrrwards.
plymayer at 6:47PM, Sept. 18, 2024
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Learned on manual typewriters in high school. Most boys didn't take typing but my navy recruiter said thing would be a lot easier for me if I learned to type before boot camp, as I was going to have to copy Morse code in my eventual job.

Used electric typewriters until computers took over in the mid 80s.

Really learned to type firing insults back and forth on a email type chat we had on our system on the submarines. (internal from position to position)
J_Scarbrough at 7:02PM, Sept. 18, 2024
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Like this.

Joseph Scarbrough
YouTube :: Facebook :: Instagram
kawaiidaigakusei at 2:26AM, Sept. 19, 2024
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Typing was a mandatory elective in seventh grade where I learned the “asdf” and “jkl;” finger placements with the raised dot keys (f) and (j) on Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. I always enjoyed the speed typing driving game with the squashed bugs on the windshield.

Touch typing made writing papers in college a lot simpler. I could keep my monitor shut off with my eyes closed, turn on some classical music, and transfer all the stored up brainstorm thoughts from my head to the machine without getting distracted.

I bought a manual typewriter from the 1940s about four years ago and the learning curve was really easy because it used a QWERTY keyboard. Playing piano also helps before I need to type up a whole document because it minimizes mistakes made while typing.

These days, I mostly use thumbs on a digital keyboards with a handheld tablet or a phone.
( ´ ▽ ` )ノ
Tantz_Aerine at 5:04AM, Sept. 19, 2024
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First contact of mine with a keyboard was a traditional typewriter like almost everyone here XD I even have a photo where I'm like one years old or something and I'm typing on a Fisher Price typewriter next to my mom who was typing up her thesis while she was studying at McGill.

I never formally learned to type, so definitely not touch typing or anything like that. It was just continuous practice, especially starting around ‘98/’99 where I got my first completely personal PC as a freshman and also an internet connection without dialup thanks to the university, and access to chat rooms.

About five years in I was so used to keyboards I typed fast and without needing to look at what my fingers are doing, and here we are.
lothar at 9:14AM, Sept. 19, 2024
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my keyboard lights up and is usually to the side cuz i'm drawing on the desk

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