The best typing training I ever got was IRC. You had to learn to type fast or some idiot wouldn’t know how wrong he was.
This definitely prepared me for a career where 90% of my interaction with coworkers is via chat.
Arguing with strangers on the internet taught me more than any teacher ever could.
Nuh uh! :p
JK, me too. XD
I took typing lessons back in the mid ‘90’s, which was VERY uncommon for teens to do. When we got the first online multiplayer games, they only had text chat. I certainly had the fastest, foulest mouth in chat 😂
I had a high school class in the mid-90s that taught you how to type. It was taught on typewriters.
There we go!
I spent more time socializing on World of Warcraft than actually leveling. Had lots of friends, and since been happily married to my best one!
Touch typing skills were essential, especially mid-combat.
…Or being the undiagnosed ADHD socialite I was, keeping like 8 running whisper and guild chats going in the game’s single chat window at once… 😂
it took me quite some time to learn not to automatically append “:D” at the end of messages in business chat
Lol
While I can also say IRC, wasn’t anything like proving someone wrong, just keeping up with the speed of the conversation required being able to type without looking at the keyboard.
Yeah, I feel like Discord (ugh) got that way quick, too, in more populated rooms. IIRC, IRC didn’t have that “quote for context” either, so if you were hunt-and-pecking the conversation already moved on lol.
Yeah, for me it was all AIM chats, though I had a couple friends who used IRC. But if you wanted to be part of the conversation, you better know how to type. You wanna make a quip? Better be quick, because so does everyone else.
IRC and Diablo 2 for me. You had to type fucking quick if you wanted to say something while your character was running to the spot you clicked on because you couldn’t click again until you finished and hit enter on that message lol.
My parents had me partake in a touch typing course. Only a few years later, after becoming a wbb2 forum mod, did I truly begin to appreciate and practice that skill.
Also a great way to learn Dvorak. Memorize the key combo to switch between the two depending on how detailed you need to be in telling them they are wrong, but as long as you keep making yourself spend a little more time on the less familiar layout, you’ll eventually become fluent and won’t have to contort your fingers as much regularly to type quickly.
Though typing games can help, too.
I just jumped in after a few weeks of typing practice using one of those learn Dvorak sites
I should start out playing Zork with a Dvorak layout.
Zvorak or something
I was too late for IRC, but i was just in time for chat websites. Never was interested in 10-finger-typing, until i discovered online chats. After that, i was one of the fastest in my class.
RuneScape
Playing MUDs felt like an advanced typing course to me. Especially before scripts and shit became available in the front end. Running around, going through attacks, spells, changing stances, running back to town, roleplaying with other players, reading description text and needing to figure out if a had to go through or climb something and it would get real fun if someone was fighting a mob in the room you entered. Raids and stuff were just insane. Trying to keep up with everything and typing constantly without using the mouse for anything. I haven’t thought about playing those games for a long time, thanks for the walk down memory lane!
Fyi, typing games are weirdly making a comeback on steam and I’m here for it
I played Typing of the Dead a month ago after not playing it since I was a kid. Holds up. I love typing games.
A lot of schools don’t because there isn’t a standardized program for teaching it. I know we used a very tough typing game for when we were taught. Not sure if I was slower on the uptake but I worked real hard to get good at touch typing.
Is anybody gonna tell this oblivious 30 year old who’s not particularly bad at typing what the lines are for?
So you can place your index fingers on the correct key without looking at the keyboard.
Huh, the more you know. Cheers!
I don’t see how one wouldn’t naturally get that, no offense. I mean, if one didn’t paticularly really ever use a keyboard and typed like gen-x or olders, with index fingers, sure.
But surely if you’re 30 and used a keyboard all your life you don’t need to look at the keyboard while typing…?
No offense. I may just be way overusing one since I was a teenager idk.
I’ve seen an incredible number of people who were never taught to properly touchtype and where each finger goes and developed bizarre techniques to type with 4, 6, or 8 fingers that may be almost as fast as the proper one but horrendously non-ergonomic. Ubiquity of staggered layouts (instead of proper ortholinear) does not help — it’s almost like it’s begging to type Z with ring finger and X with middle one.
I’m deep into my 40s, and I’m one of those. I can get up to 70 words per minute for short stretches, but it’s still a weird dance that combines muscle memory and hand-eye coordination.
I did learn just enough to know to hover my hands and keep my arms at a good posture, so I’ve never had any RSI from typing. That also may be partly because that I’m so inconsistent that I don’t get enough of the R for RSI, LOL.
I touch type , and yes I figured out what the lines were for… But I definitely don’t use them as reference points when I’m typing.
Doesn’t really have to do whether youre good or bad. When they teach you officially, they show you that the j and f are the home row where your index fingers go. If you’re self taught you might not know that and that’s totally fine as long as you can still type.
I’m self-taught as well, and someone knowing the “proper” way to type could probably have a stroke looking at my hands on the keyboard lmao. But yeah since I don’t need to look at the keys when I’m typing, and I still type pretty fast and without mistakes, who cares? If it works it works, even if it looks insane
Wow, they really don’t teach you kids typing anymore, huh.
As Mavis Beacon gently weeps…
I only learned a few years ago, she was not a real person. Just an actress that was used to create a persona. It did help me type tho.
If the dishonesty bothers you, I recommend a more realistic tutor for learning to type: Typing of the Dead.
Turning in her fictional grave.
Carriage returns from the grave.
I grew up with a computer in the 80s and for years i would stare at the keyboard while mentally keeping track of what I was typing.
I took keyboarding in middle school and learned to touch type but it took years of practice to break the habits I formed as a child.
Now I’ll be typing something and my husband will walk in so I’ll pause and look over to see what he needs. One time he said “don’t stop on my account” so I started typing again while staring at him.
I can hold a full conversation while doing this but have to slow down to around 60wpm to avoid transcribing the conversation.
They don’t teach typing anymore. Which is like. Makes zero sense.
I see college kids typing out essays with two index fingers.
No one learns typing unless forced. It’s super boring.
They need to make it mandatory in public schools. Or future generations will be unable to type properly.
I learned it back in like 8th grade or something.
When I was a kid they taught us how to type in school. But they taught everybody how to type wrong: with your hands parallel to each other, instead of wrists straight. I nearly got carpal tunnel syndrome and had to learn how to type a second time!
We were taught the same. With a paper over our hands so we couldn’t cheat. My hands naturally moved off home row because it felt awkward to have my wrists bent. I hate the “natural” keyboards but my hands rest like they’re designed
I learned to keep my hands like that thanks to a really weird looking A4Tech ergonomic keyboard, then I realized I could just keep my wrists like that on any keyboard.
I used to have one of those ergonomic keyboards at my last job. Took a week probably to get fully used to (I typed all day). But I recall liking it.
I have small hands but even I feel like most keyboards are cramped. Especially laptop ones.
the egonomic one felt more open and relaxed. But it was wonky to use at first.
Was something like this one.
Split keyboards for the win! Mine and my wife’s Microsoft Natural Keyboard 4000 is the epitome of “perfect keyboard”. We both dread the day they die since they’re no longer available.
8th grade? I had typing lessons in 4th!
Really depends on your age. I self-taught with my mom’s typewriter when I was like 8 or 9 and then wasn’t officially taught until 8th grade when computers became more commonplace in schools. Then I had to relearn when I went to school for transcription in my 20s because apparently my 8th grade teacher did a bad job.
Love typing though, my first video game was a typing game on a floppy disk on our windows 97.
That’s actually so cool. I’m just a bit too young to have done so, but I would have loved to have learned on a typewriter. I’ve only ever touched one as a fun relic of the past, never for actual use.
To make it really easy to know where U and H are, because you never want to be unable to type uhhhhh without looking at the keyboard
This comment has been brought to you by Dvorak, it would be great if it were more supported
Why would we need dvorak?
I found it to resolve the problem of my wrists hurting when I type too much.
But the lack of support is basically that for some reason games tend to use it as my keyboard layout (it’s my default) even when I switch to qwerty before starting it up, forcing me to respec the controls. Still worth not being in pain after typing up something, and definitely lower priority than left handed controls, but it is a minor annoyance.
People look at me like I’m taking crazy pills when I bring up The Typing of the Dead. Literally House of the Dead with a keyboard. You type or you die. It brings that Dark Souls energy to Mavis Beacon’s doorstep.
First played it on my Sega Dreamcast. Probably the only way I could still play now since I don’t have a CRT anymore for light guns.
I need a new keyboard. Those little nubs are worn off mine and I’m constantly putting my fingers on the wrong keys unless I keep looking down at it.
Put a small dot of clear nail polish or glue on the key to recreate the bump.
Tried clear nail polish, now it’s well dry and works like a dream!
Hot glue applied via toothpick, problem solved.
Who hear took a keyboarding class? By keyboard I mean a typewriter.
Me, haha
Having a booth for a PC game at conventions used to be difficult because people were not familiar with keyboard and mouse controls. If you weren’t prepared for this you basically had to quickly add controller support somehow and send someone from your team to the next electric store and to buy a bunch of controllers.
Nowadays, though? Game convention visitors these days barely know how to hold a controller. They keep poking at the screens, hoping something happens. It’s a frustrating experience for indie devs sometimes.
So yeah I’m not surprised when people look at keyboards like they’re some kind of ancient slate.
Reminds me of the video game reviewer who couldn’t get past the Cuphead tutorial.
Who the fuck are these people??
As my 13yo would say, “why? I can just voice to text”
For when you need to do an assignment due the next day but your roommate keeps yelling at you to shut the fuck up already because they are trying to sleep while you slowly dictate the introduction to your 5 page essay, which then gets you kicked out of your class because you missed removing a few of the "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"s that your voice to text helpfully added for you.
I was required to take typing classes in middle school, and the teach put cardboard over our hands
That must’ve been really uncomfortable with the cardboard bouncing up & down on your knuckles while you’re typing 🤔
I was never told, but I always assumed it was to orient yourself without looking, and that’s where the index fingers go when hands are resting on the keyboard.
Smart cookie, you assumed correctly! :)
It was a hard habit to form if you were taught that way, but it does wonders once you learn it.
Yes that’s what they’re for
