In the fall of 1983 I was in the 8th grade. I started using computers in school as well as at home, so my mother enrolled me in an evening typing class. I did okay, but I could never get too comfortable with typing with my hands in the proper position or not looking at the keys. I’ve pretty much developed my own technique since then and my thumbs, index and middle fingers do most of the work. I probably type about 40 to 45 words per minute.
When I went to school in the days before personal computers, and my instructors insisted that papers be typed, I had to manage somehow. So I began to pound them out myself, using the two-fingered hunt-and-peck method, on a Smith-Corona manual a friend loaned me. Eventually, I managed to use more than two fingers, and get pretty fast, though I never had a lesson or class.
Nowadays, all ten fingers move all over the keyboard as need demands, and not in any way that resembles somebody who has been taught the correct method. To me, a “home key” is something I use to lock the front door of my house. 
However, at least one habit that came from using that old Smith-Corona manual still remains: I tend to hit the keyboard a lot harder than people who have learned on electric typewriters or computer keyboards. The letters printed on most of my keys have worn off, and some of my keys are actually dented! Does anybody else who learned on a manual find themselves still hitting the keyboard hard?
I learned in 9th grade (1982) on a manual typewriter. At 72 wpm I was the fastest in my class, an achievement I chalked up to years of piano practice. The class was composed half of nerdy 9th-graders like me and half of cool senior football players who needed to strike off a quick requirement before graduation. None of the football players could type worth a hoot, so to even the playing field on test day they secretly switched my typewriter with the worst sticky-key-worn-ribbon hunk of metal in the classroom. I still flew past them all without breaking a sweat – my first and only victory over the cool kids.
Learning on a manual served me very well when I switched to computer keyboards, which as we all know are much faster. Mousing sure is a waste of time, though.
Another 9th grade typist here. Learned on an old Royal manual and blazed away at about 80 wpm (ain’t touch-typing wonderful?). Of all the classes I ever took on any subject, this one has benefited me the most in my life.
Typing class for me was freshman year at high school on a bright blue Selectric.
I can still hear Ms Waggoner reading off exercises… eff eff eff space jay jay jay space eff space jay space…
I, too, learned on an IBM Selectric in high school. I had an old manual portable at home for a long time but pretty much used the two finger method with it. My first time actually typing was when I took a class called Introduction to Business or something like that. I was a freshman at the time and we only typed for about half a semester.
It wasn’t until my senior year that I took a real typing class. I was terrible. I never got above 25 WPM and the teacher put a sheet of paper over my hands so I wouldn’t look down. Part of the problem was that Dad had bought a Commodore 64 at around the same time I started my typing class. The 64s have a slightly different layout from typewriters so I had to type one way at school and another way at home.
My proficency has improved over the past 20 years. I landed an office automation job with the US Goverment, which meant I had to be a certified typist. My agency had stopped certifying by then so I had to go into a certain office in the DC governemnt, one on U Street near the Metro. This was the only officet hat would certify non-DC residents. I almost didn’t pass! They only have five different tests and the target is 40 WPM. I went in the first day and failed. Went in the second day and failed. Same for the thrid and fourth and was encouraged to take a break. I went back a week later for my fifth and final try and passed with a 55! This was on a typewriter; my fastest on a computer is probably around 75 WPM.
Like ErinPuff, I also only use the left shift. Have no idea why.
I learned at around 2nd grade (1983-ish) on and old beat-up manual typewriter my aunt had. I loved writing stories, so I quite naturally took to typing. I was also taking piano lessons at the time, so they seemed like a natural fit.
I hadn’t taken any typing lessons until high school, but by that time my habits had been well-established. Luckily, when I self-taught myself, I learned good habits (pseudo-home-row technique). I was clocked at 67 correct words per minute on a manual typewriter in high school (we were still using those.)
These days, I max out at around 110 or so on a computer, and am very comfortable in the 90 wpm range.
DOS and computer games pretty much teach me how to type.
I was rather clumsy at first, and even now I still use a few fingers to type - not relying on any methods, such as touch typing. I just, well, sort of memorise the layout of the keyboard and can pretty much type without typing.
Oh yeah, I also did pick up some tricks from Typing of the Dead. A cool way to learn typing and blast zombies at the same time.
Learned to type? You mean there’s a right way to be doing this?
It appears I do most everything with the left middle finger and pinky, and the right index, middle and thumb.
But I’m damn good that way.
He means TYPING you perverts.
Define “learn to type.” If you mean, “If you want the letter q to appear, hit the Q key. If you want a capital Q to appear, hold down the shift key and hit the Q key” kind of thing, I learned that real early, on a manual typewriter (this would have been the early 70’s, well before computers).
I also learned that you had to listen for the little bell, and when you heard it, finish the word you were typing and hit the carriage return lever. It is to this character-building lesson that I attribute my ability to heed early warnings, know how much margin I have remaining, and stay out of trouble. Kids these days, with their automatic formatting word processors, don’t learn this!
I never did take a typing class or get any formal training in typing. Nowadays, I’ve been typing for so many years that my fingers pretty well know where all the keys are and I can type pretty well, but I don’t have a system; the keys are hit by whatever finger gets there first.
(My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000, which was about the size of a Frisbee and had a flat membrane instead of individual keys. All the letters were in the right places, so I got used to where everything was, but it wasn’t typing as, say, a trained secretary would recognize it.)
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I didn’t play Zork, but I spent quite some time playing Gemstone III (now GSIV) back in the day.
Typewriters were very outdated by the time I was typing. I spent a little time with Mavis Beacon, which my mother purchased for me when I was ~10. I find that typing fast rarely helps me because I am rarely copying something. My bottleneck is figuring out what I want to write. Typing at 200 wpm would not make that paper get done appreciably faster.
I never learned to type any proper way. I got a Commodore 64 when I was 9 and that taught me the basic keyboard layout. I have been using computers since then and I have just gotten faster and faster using whatever method that I use. I don’t even have any idea what that is. I use both hands and most fingers but I have my own system. All I know is that my fingers just type what my brain commands but sometimes I use my right hand on the left side of the keyboard and vice versa. A temp agency tested me about 9 years ago and I typed 65 WPM by this method.
I took half a semester in typing in high school, but really honed my skills on IRC.
I’m a first second generation computer geek. So I’ve just been typing since I was 2.
Never been clocked. I don’t believe I’m impressively fast, but as a writer or programmer I just need to be able to type as fast as I can think up what I want to put down. That I can do.
I probably had the most fun learning how to type out of all of you by playing typer shark.
I’d recommend it for anyone who wants to learn how to type.
I took two years of typing in high school, and since it was a Catholic high school, electric typewriters were considered tools of the devil, so we had old manual ones. Turns out I sat at the same desk for both years, and the typewriter I had had a sticky space bar. As a consequence, I really bang the hell out of my keyboard’s space bars now. I simply CANNOT break the habit.
I’m at maybe 40 wpm, and I never learned to touch-type. I just can’t seem to get the hang of it. I hunt-and-peck, but I’ve been doing it for so long that I’m really not all that slow.
I don’t even have the excuse of age for being unable to touch-type.
7th grade typing class, on an ancient electric typewriter whose model I no longer recall. The teacher was rather attractive, as I recall. I consider it the single most useful class I took in junior high.
The concept of “learning to type” seems a bit outmoded. I believe I learned to type about the same time I learned letters arrange into words. A keyboard is something I think most of this generation has grown up with.
That didn’t stop it from being taught, again and again, in school. First in second grade (Apple IIGS). Then in fourth grade (Mac Classic). Again in fifth grade (Same). Once more in eighth grade (on ancient IBMs with two 5-1/4" floppy drives that were incredibly old even back then). And there was an optional typing class at high school, but it was eventually done away with when it was realized it was just unnecessary holdover from the typewriter days when it was assumed typing would have to be a learned skill, with old Gateways taking the place of Smith-Coronas.
Other than little scribbly notes, I type exclusively, either on the computer, or a Royal manual typewriter. Quick lists and labels are much quicker when done on a typewriter. Now, that was a skill that took practice. You have to actually hit the keys, and they’re not all in the same place, and there’s no number 1 or exclamation point.
I learned as a sophmore in high school, on an IBM Selectric with Pica type. I’m good but not great. I never did quite get the number keys down (in terms of which finger hit’s which key).
The typewriters we used didn’t have the built in correction ribbon and button so we all had to keep packages of correction tape available. You know, the kind you hold in front of the error when you retype it? Anyway, I continually forgot to bring mine, so I’d wander around the typing room before class and grab any strips that people had left at the desks in the prior classes.
Hey, remember counting the letters in a title in order to center it on the page? Ah, what memories. 