View Full Version : Random Question: Can you 'Touch type' or do you 'hunt and peck'
FromMyColdDeadHand
07-20-20, 15:44
For some reason my Mom made me take typing classes with and old 30 pound manual typewriter when I was in 5th grade. Had to lug to and from school on Wednesdays. It was the 80s and one way to get software was to buy the magazine "Compute" which printed pages of BASIC or hexdex machine code that you could type in and get a program- usually that only worked after they printed the corrections two months later. So I wasn't against it that much. You want to learn typing, copying pages of hex code will do it.
My wife never learned, though I know a lot of people had to take typing in HS, just like they took Spanish, I'm not sure that either took. My high-school and middle school kids didn't have to take typing, or learn cursive (or times tables or really spelling, but I digress)- I guess it is too hard to break them of hunt and peck.
Though, with my wife having never of learned, my kids have always said- "I want to type like Dad, he's actually fast."
I'm not that good at transcribing since I mostly type for emails and posts, and I have no idea how fast I am. But how many people learned how to type and how many do an advanced hunt and peck?
Apple's IOS/MAC speech to text is just good enough to be tempting to use, it jacks up so much stuff that has to be fixed, it isn't nearly as fast as typing.
LowSpeed_HighDrag
07-20-20, 15:55
Hunt and peck, and I do fairly well for what it is. Took a typing class in High School, never did well trying to ASDF HJKL type.
I have my own style -- my family laughs at me but I am very quick. I basically use my thumbs and the first two finger on each hand in a modified "hunt and peck" scheme.
I remember my first real job, for Digital Equipment Corp. The supervisor was a good touch typist. The next level boss up was a one finger, very slow hunt and peck typist. We were in the higher level boss's cubicle and the touch typist supervisor told the boss to move and sat down in his seat to type everything we were testing / working on. He could not stand to watch the higher boss slowly hunt and peck each letter. It was pretty funny. (Luckily the two had a good history so the upper level boss was not offended).
Diamondback
07-20-20, 16:02
I use a hybrid of the two, more touch-type in the mix normally but shifting toward hunt-peck when on a bad keyboard.
Grand58742
07-20-20, 16:04
I have my own style -- my family laughs at me but I am very quick. I basically use my thumbs and the first two finger on each hand in a modified "hunt and peck" scheme.
I remember my first real job, for Digital Equipment Corp. The supervisor was a good touch typist. The next level boss up was a one finger, very slow hunt and peck typist. We were in the higher level boss's cubicle and the touch typist supervisor told the boss to move and sat down in his seat to type everything we were testing / working on. He could not stand to watch the higher boss slowly hunt and peck each letter. It was pretty funny. (Luckily the two had a good history so the upper level boss was not offended).
This, but with three fingers on each hand and slamming the space bar with my thumbs most of the time.
It's helps that I'm an amateur writer and have had to learn to do such a thing.
In the 60's, only girls took typing. At age 40 I had to learn to work on a PC. Bought and old typing text book and spent weekends doing the drills. Still not that fast and couldnt get by without spell check.
.....I basically use my thumbs and the first two finger on each hand in a modified "hunt and peck" scheme.....
Same here.
Straight Shooter
07-20-20, 16:19
My gf says Im a "fast pecker".:o
Grand58742
07-20-20, 16:20
My gf says Im a "fast pecker".:o
Two fingers worth?
Took typing in high school. Old manual typewriters. Got up to 36 WPM. In college we didn't have computers so essays and other work were done on typewriters. For a pre-college graduation gift from high school in 1978, my folks bought me a Smith-Corona electric typewriter which took correction cartridges. Used it all thru college. Used to take notes on 3x5 cards in the main library at the University of Arizona when researching homework and essay writing, then used those cards for study and writing the final drafts. Fun times.
I took a typing class my senior year of high school just to get a credit I needed. It worked (I learned) and I'm glad it did!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiaiMbQ69zqAhUygnIEHeE8A_IQ3ywwAHoECAwQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DWijCItSXA6g&usg=AOvVaw2ks_uLrycnn6oTtrqUe_Mp
This guy gets it.
For some reason my Mom made me take typing classes with and old 30 pound manual typewriter when I was in 5th grade. Had to lug to and from school on Wednesdays. It was the 80s and one way to get software was to buy the magazine "Compute" which printed pages of BASIC or hexdex machine code that you could type in and get a program- usually that only worked after they printed the corrections two months later. So I wasn't against it that much. You want to learn typing, copying pages of hex code will do it.
My wife never learned, though I know a lot of people had to take typing in HS, just like they took Spanish, I'm not sure that either took. My high-school and middle school kids didn't have to take typing, or learn cursive (or times tables or really spelling, but I digress)- I guess it is too hard to break them of hunt and peck.
Though, with my wife having never of learned, my kids have always said- "I want to type like Dad, he's actually fast."
I'm not that good at transcribing since I mostly type for emails and posts, and I have no idea how fast I am. But how many people learned how to type and how many do an advanced hunt and peck?
Apple's IOS/MAC speech to text is just good enough to be tempting to use, it jacks up so much stuff that has to be fixed, it isn't nearly as fast as typing.
Geeze I can remember transcribing four the five pages of programming from computer magazines with my Apple II plus from 81-84. Yeah I can mostly type, I had an electric Smith Corona and took a typing class in high school.
I took typing class in 7th grade on an old manual typewriter. I still remember my teacher, Mrs. Williams. After the first week of class she taped construction paper over the keyboard. Mrs. Williams would walk around the classroom with a yardstick and would slap it down hard on your hands if she caught you looking under the paper. Needless to say I became an expert typer, a skill that continues to this day. Funny, about 10 years later my new wife got a job teaching at that school and became friends with Mrs. Williams- who still scared me when she walked by.
MountainRaven
07-20-20, 17:45
If I'm typing normal English words, I mostly type normally. If I'm doing something like punching in a password, I usually have to peck.
I did take a class on typing in high school (it was required) but didn't do very well at it. Most of the time, I actually just pecked. My ability to properly type mostly arose from years and years of pecking (and gaming) and just plain getting better and better at it.
I took typing in HS. Glad I did because I have to type a lot at work.
I was lucky ... my school bought Apple IIc’s to teach everyone in lower school. I started typing courses in 1st Grade and had some sort of typing / computer course every year until I graduated. We had timed exams (words per minute) by third grade and you’d have to take remedial classes if you didn’t pass at a minimum words per minute. The exams were such that hunt and peck would never work. I think we had to do 20 or 25 words per minute?
They began teaching us Excel, Access, and Word in the 8th Grade. I didn’t appreciate until later what a “leg-up” this gave me until I had to run financial models in college. A lot of my classmates were clueless on excel but that made me a good partner in group projects.
Adrenaline_6
07-20-20, 18:45
I am in the modified 3 finger per hand hunt and peck club too.
I'm 41, in middle school we had "computer class" as a subject just about every day. At one point that included typing. Fingers in home row and everything.
I can typically type faster than I think, especially if I'm being ocd about spelling as I will keep back spacing ti correct where I should really just keep going and then go back to fix it.
On occasion I'll get dyslexia of the fingers... Like I type a L instead of a S. Or some times it gets a little crazy if I use my mouse and come back to the keyboard and my fingers are off by a button.
Look up a dvorak keyboard if you want to lear something interesting. Was talking about it at work the other day. Basically the qwerty keyboard was designed the way it is to slow people down so that the hammer on old typewriters wouldn't get stuck.
hotrodder636
07-20-20, 18:53
Touch typing. Years of it for work. Had a full year in school.
Typing in middle school and high school. Also had a college job as a bank teller where 10-key by touch was a good skill. Last year I found a nice mechanical keyboard for my work computer. Great tactile feedback. The clicky clack drives my wife and son crazy when I bang out a long email, but I love it.
Not skilled, but I bang out about 65~75WPM.
dwhitehorne
07-20-20, 21:01
My dad insisted I take typing in high school in the 80's. I was quite annoyed until I saw the teacher. She was definitely the hottest looking teacher I ever had. She would totally mess with the few boys in the class and always lean over the front of the typewriter with her cleavage and ask how we were doing. I would always say "fine" and in my head be saying I'm definitely not looking at my fingers. David
I have my own style -- my family laughs at me but I am very quick. I basically use my thumbs and the first two finger on each hand in a modified "hunt and peck" scheme.
I do almost the same thing, occasionally throwing in other fingers as needed to hit far keys. I can still pull about 30-35 WPM.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KxsK-Heye0U/XQ0Yo1arNiI/AAAAAAAAM1g/xo1UM9EUvg0iJXi-FnHtCQCvZoki_V6AQCLcBGAs/s640/NOT-GREAT-NOT-TERRIBLE-Chernobyl%2B-%2BComrade%2BDyatlov.gif
Side story; I tried to learn to type when I was a kid. Or at least my parents tried to get me to type. We had "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" on old-school PC. There was this mummy-zapping/tomb exploration game you could play to practice your skills. Well... the game was way the hell more fun than the lessons, which were boring AF. And you could set the difficulty of the game... so I got REALLY GOOD at typing some variation of ASDFGHJKL:' on easy mode. :laugh:
Then in college I tried to learn again; well actually again they tried to make me learn since it was a required class for my degree. Well, between all the other classes I had, I never had the time to bother even attending the class, and I was getting plenty of practice writing papers anyway, so it came to my attention that there was an option to just test out. Went for the test... and wrecked house. It was such an easy test that I was clearing 40+ WPM on some of the easy words/sentences centered around the ASDFGHJKL line of keys...merely using my patented multi-finger method. All those days wasted zapping mummies with Mavis Beacon FINALLY paid off! :laugh:
The_War_Wagon
07-20-20, 21:22
Self taught hunt 'n' peck! ;)
The_War_Wagon
07-20-20, 21:25
We had "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" on old-school PC.
Holy CRAP! I did a cross-cultural internship while working on my Masters degree, on the Oglala-Lakota Reservation in Pine Ridge, SD. That was one of the software titles I installed on some computers at the local middle school while there, in January of '96!
Either I'm ANCIENT, or you're a kid! :eek:
I use the Marco Polo system of typing. My fingers float around until they find a key to land on.
I hunt and peck but im actually pretty fast at it. Not as fast as my wife who types correctly though.
My wife works in IT for a major corporation and types dozens if not hundreds of emails and online replies a week. She uses a special keyboard now.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50135789056_98fbfd8b1d_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2jok2o9)20200720_201921 (https://flic.kr/p/2jok2o9) by chase ditwiler (https://www.flickr.com/photos/157376915@N07/), on Flickr
We had to take typing in the 7th grade, so I learned to type well then. I used to be really fast, but I've slowed down a little. I was on a computer all through high school, college, and now at work, so I'm glad I learned it.
m1a_scoutguy
07-20-20, 23:09
My wife works in IT for a major corporation and types dozens if not hundreds of emails and online replies a week. She uses a special keyboard now.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50135789056_98fbfd8b1d_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2jok2o9)20200720_201921 (https://flic.kr/p/2jok2o9) by chase ditwiler (https://www.flickr.com/photos/157376915@N07/), on Flickr
Dam I had a keyboard like that years ago ! My oldest kid came home drunk one night and spilled water on it,, LOL I kinda do both but am actually pretty fast at it ! I never took typing in school so I did learn once I got into PCs ! Couldn't tell you WPM but Wife will be sitting in the living room just a short distance from where our PC is and just go dam you typing like a mad man ! All I'll say is thank god for spell check & Grammarly ! ;)
I can touch-type how it's supposed to be done, but I have my own odd way of doing it that's a little different and I can type about 80 WPM doing it my way.
All my colleagues comment on how weird it is, the way I do it, but how fast I am at it.
I just did a quick online words per minute calculator test to see where I am at as I haven't done it in a while, I got 87 WPM with 2 errors.
I can completely touch type and 10 key. I'm a product of mid-80's high school. We had electric type writers and the first Apple computers. ALL the hot girls were in business classes (typing, 10 key, etc.) so that's where I went. I left high school in the 70 wpm range on the typewriter. I was pretty fast on a 10 key as well. My mom was so fast with a 10 key she could only buy certain calculators because some couldn't keep up.
I tell many people that my typing and 10 key skills were the foundation for much of the success I've had in my working life. My typing speed allowed me to remain employed in jobs while other people were laid off several times.
As a boss it is agonizing to watch the wasted time of people with sub par typing and calculating skills. :D
FromMyColdDeadHand
07-21-20, 00:34
Typing in middle school and high school. Also had a college job as a bank teller where 10-key by touch was a good skill. Last year I found a nice mechanical keyboard for my work computer. Great tactile feedback. The clicky clack drives my wife and son crazy when I bang out a long email, but I love it.
Not skilled, but I bang out about 65~75WPM.
What kind of mechanical keyboard is that? I saw one at a sharper image like store in the mall, but it still wasn't right. My MIL would love to have a literally mechanical key board.
The funny thing is that if you asked me where a key was, I really don't know, but if I think of a letter or a word, it appears.
My grandfather was in the 82nd inbetween WWII and Korea and he could still listen to morse code and tell you what was being said, like he was hearing a language, not dots and dashes.
My spelling is what holds me back and when I get tired with spelling and fat fingers, it just gets slower and more error prone.
Listening to some speed metal right now, which helps.
Thanks for the distractions.
It's funny with small motor skills like typing. I'm a chemist and did 7 years in a lab. Went back after ten years and was amazed that the manipulations that I used to do easily, I was all thumbs now.
donlapalma
07-21-20, 00:36
Touch type homey. All day.
The skill that is amazing to me is those who can post a two or three page update to facebook, on their phone...using their thumbs. I've seen people who, if they had to, could write a book with their thumbs.
Definitely a "not my generation" skill.
The skill that is amazing to me is those who can post a two or three page update to facebook, on their phone...using their thumbs. I've seen people who, if they had to, could write a book with their thumbs.
Definitely a "not my generation" skill.Not weiting books or anything but I used to be able to type pretty well on the older backberry phones. The ones where the bottom half was a keyboard. Not the smartest thing but I used to text and drive quite a bit. But my eyes never left the road. I could type everything out with my right thumb and then before sending I'd bring my phone up to just about my line of sight so I was not looking down to proof read.
Took a while to get used to typing on a flat screen, I normally keep the vibrate on so it almost feels like im pressing buttons.
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
My mom assigned me Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing as part of middle or high school.
Between that and arguing on martial arts and scifi plastic modeling forums, I got pretty darn fast. It has been very beneficial for papers in college and now at work.
Touch type. Learned in grade school on a computer game that was like the old game "missile command" in a way. First letters would fall from the top and you would have to type the letter to blow it up before it hit your cities at the bottom of the screen. As you progressed there would be small words, then short phrases and then full sentences. It was fun and I didn't even realize I was learning to type...made some great extra cash in college typing last minute papers for those who were more keyboard challenged!
Whiskey_Bravo
07-21-20, 07:43
Touch type, and fairly fast. I took some typing classes and then got very into computers in the 90s so I am sure that helped.
Whiskey_Bravo
07-21-20, 07:45
What kind of mechanical keyboard is that? I saw one at a sharper image like store in the mall, but it still wasn't right. My MIL would love to have a literally mechanical key board.
If you are looking into a good mechanical keyboard look into Corsair. Expensive but I love mine. It is loud though.
What kind of mechanical keyboard is that?
After some online digging, I picked up one from Havit. I have their smaller one as I didn't need a lot of multimedia control, 10 key, etc. Have had it for over a year now.
I had a good friend, he was a big strong, corn-fed Tennessee kid who used to tell me a story about himself. He said that freshman year of high school, they tried to put him in a typing class, but after he only got up to about 14 WPM, they took him out of there and put him in weight-training class. More or less defined his life haha. I know it's hard for people to know how funny that is, obviously not knowing who I'm talking about, but it gave me a chuckle.
As for me; between work emails, student life, and interacting with people on the interwebs in various ways, I probably type several thousand words in the average day. I still don't do it quite technically correct as I don't use my right hand pinky for 'P' very well. I could be faster, but I'm fast enough. I am just old enough that when I was younger (as in, a child) we did play with an old typewriter at grandma's house....wouldn't say I did much with it though.
P2Vaircrewman
07-21-20, 09:33
As a teenage I had a head injury that left me with diminished sense of touch in the fingers of my left hand. As a result I can not touch type, play a musical instrument and have difficulty buttoning the cuff button on the right sleeve of a shirt. I also have trouble identifying change and other small objects just by touch. When shooting left hand I have to be very conscious of the position of my trigger finger and pressure on the trigger.
I was a horrible student in middle school and junior high, told I would not be 'college material.' I was forced to take typing (half the year on a manual, half on an electric), and an intro to tech education (9 weeks each in masonry, drafting, electric, and carpentry). Those two classes got my ass in gear; I graduated 12th in a class of almost 400.
I HATED typing (I liked the tech class, but sucked at it). My high school typing class was full of window lickers. The hotties went to home ec. I am a hybrid of hunt-and-peck and QWERTY and can manager pretty well.
Holy CRAP! I did a cross-cultural internship while working on my Masters degree, on the Oglala-Lakota Reservation in Pine Ridge, SD. That was one of the software titles I installed on some computers at the local middle school while there, in January of '96!
Either I'm ANCIENT, or you're a kid! :eek:
Well, I'm 30+ but not sure what that makes me these days... :laugh:
BrigandTwoFour
07-21-20, 10:47
My parents bought a program for me in 1995/96 timeframe to start learning typing, it was Mario themed and I did ok learning the basics there. I really got quick when we got American Online in the dial-up days and I started participating in chatrooms. Then I went full computer nerd in high school. I remember having to do typing in my computer classes where the required speed for an "A" was 30 words per minute and I routinely turned in 80+
Got my degree in computer science later on, so there was obviously lots of typing there.
I'm still hovering around 120-130 WPM with 95% when I'm practicing and pushing myself. It's a useful skill, but my wife definitely gets annoyed by the sound the keyboard makes.
So, in short, touch typing is my jam. It really weirds people out when I can look over at them and have a conversation while still rattling away at whatever I was typing.
The good old days when schools taught life skills as well as academics.
I learned to cook, sew, fix household electrics, wood working, basic metal work, and personal banking in middle and high school.
These were all things I learned at home too from my mom and dad too, but the school environment was "different".
When I graduated HS, I wanted to be a shop teacher, but my last shop teacher told me he thought his job would be over and gone before I graduated college. He was only off by a couple of years, but he was right. :(
Touch and type. I was a POG, and a damn fine one I might add. :)
Ogf course ai CAN toucjn tyope, why doesnbtr everyiobe<>>?
The good old days when schools taught life skills as well as academics.
I learned to cook, sew, fix household electrics, wood working, basic metal work, and personal banking in middle and high school.
These were all things I learned at home too from my mom and dad too, but the school environment was "different".
When I graduated HS, I wanted to be a shop teacher, but my last shop teacher told me he thought his job would be over and gone before I graduated college. He was only off by a couple of years, but he was right. :(
You could get a job teaching Self Esteem or Thumb Sucking in today’s high schools.
You could get a job teaching Self Esteem or Thumb Sucking in today’s high schools.
thanks. go **** yourself.
BuzzinSATX
07-21-20, 14:30
I use a hybrid of the two, more touch-type in the mix normally but shifting toward hunt-peck when on a bad keyboard.
This is me...I still have to look at keys a bit...self taught...
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
thanks. go **** yourself.
That’s not a dig at you, man. It’s a dig at today’s high school curriculum.
That’s not a dig at you, man. It’s a dig at today’s high school curriculum.
Then I do apologize. It came off as pretty direct.
ColtSeavers
07-22-20, 21:39
I use 3 out of 4 fingers and my thumbs. I was fast as shit too, when I was online gaming years ago.
Now it's fat fingering (thumbing) a (tiny ass) keyboard on my smartphone's screen...
My first typing class was 5th grade, I hated it at the time but glad I mostly paid attention. My two career paths, auto sales and now into year 5 as a cop, require a ton of typing. On a real keyboard I type properly, with some looking at the keys. Since my generation grew up texting we are stupid fast on an iPhone.
Diamondback
07-23-20, 10:40
My first typing class was 5th grade, I hated it at the time but glad I mostly paid attention. My two career paths, auto sales and now into year 5 as a cop, require a ton of typing. On a real keyboard I type properly, with some looking at the keys. Since my generation grew up texting we are stupid fast on an iPhone.
Damn, man, you're making ME feel old now, and I'm barely 40...
Honestly, being a PC gamer and having the innate desire to talk trash during RTS games made me a truly quick typer - had the fundamentals from various computer classes at schools, and I realized the technique had a fair bit of value to being able to type quickly, but honestly the difference was that real-time games give you discrete typing windows, and as a teenager there are lots of reasons not to feel restricted about just how much you can insinuate about another player's mother... so I got good and fast with typing.
Dr. Bullseye
07-31-20, 20:18
I learned to type in high school. How did you guys miss this? Being able to swim was also a high school requirement.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.