Feeling quiet this morning. No specific reason why. Perhaps I need to line up a guest poster for the day. Although, I'm scared of the submissions I would receive. :)
My apostrophe key is not functioning properly. I have to really thwack it to get it to work. I'm a light-touch typer because I type so fast I don't really have a lot of time to spend on any particular key.
Speaking of typing, how and when did you learn to type?
I've been typing since I was six years old. I used to bang away on the family typewriter, pretending I had exciting and inciteful information to communicate to the world.
When I was 9 we got our first Commodore 64 and my brother, 5 1/2 years my senior, used to force me to type programs in for him. He would read them from C64 magazines and I would just type what he said. If I didn't understand what he was saying he'd walk over, show me, then walk back across the room and continue telling me what to type. If I didn't do what he said he'd bully me into it. I generally complied, although sometimes I would object just to see what creative bullying techniques my brother would use on me, but that's a whole other story.
Skip ahead to me at age 13. I adored my brother, but he didn't spend much time with me. One day while I was at my dad's house* my brother invited me into his room and showed me the world of the BBS. That was the day that Poppy was born, the day that I suddenly felt like anyone was listening, anyone even cared. It's where I found my first boyfriend who later became one of my best friends. It's where my first unpaid job was -- as a SysOp all four years of high school. It's where I hung out from the time I got home from school until the time I went to bed. That BBS doesn't exist anymore but if I ever mention to the local geeks that I was part of it they remember it and share in the nostalgia. Even Hay logged into that bulletin board, although we didn't really connect there other than some meaningless drivel chatting that neither of us specifically remembers.
That same year I had a proper typing class in school where we learned about home row on, ironically enough, a Commodore 64. I already knew how to type by then because I had already been using typing tutor software to type faster while I chatted on the BBS. I was the bestest student in the class. :)
And I thought I was quiet this morning... Hmm.
*My parents divorced when I was 3. My brother thought he was supposed to tell my parents he wanted to live with my dad so that's what he did. I went with my mom. Each weekend we switched off going to each other's house -- every two weeks I went to my dad's house for the weekend, then every weekend when I wasn't at Dad's my brother came to Mom's house.
15 comments:
I didn't take typing until I was a senior in high school. I wouldn't have then, but my mother insisted. (And boy, was she right.) This was back in the dark ages, when we learned on MANUAL TYPEWRITERS. I know, I know...the horror! I took to it right away, though, probably because I was a piano player, and within 3 weeks I was already typing at the speed required by the end of the year if you wanted to get an A. I won the typing award that year.
i like the title of this post :) i learned to type on my mom's IBM, where i would type stories and such when i was little. i never liked the proper way of typing, so my style is still very idiosyncratic...but fast ;)
I plunked around on my dad's old cast iron typewriter until I entered Grade 9 (age 13) and took an actual typing course (also at my mom's urging) in which we used electric typewriters. Like most girls, I excelled in this particular sport.
We've always had a computer since I was born; our first real one was an IBM Aptiva in 1993 - it ran Windows 3.1. I too learned how to type at an early age - but I never liked the home position. I type too fast and too light to keep my hands in one place. I also found that playing the piano aided in developing faster typing skills because of the positioning of the hands and the motions that you're forced to make. (Also helps with the RPI, too. :D)
Actually, I found this website for measuring your words-per-minute rate. See how fast you can get; I average about 71 words-per-minute.
http://www.calculatorcat.com/typing_test/
The slowest: 86. The fastest: 100. Hmm. I've gotten slower. :)
Well, I don't plan on becoming a typist, so no worries then. :P
That test was fun. I topped out at 115. Cool. ;)
Woohoo! I have an old boyfriend who won local typing competitions in both QWERTY and Dvorak. Hay can do more than 120 wpm. For some reason typing speed is one of my "likes" in a man. :P
Huh, wonder how fast John Krasinski types.
I had an old Apple IIe and I learned to program at 10. I created a whole series of BASIC programs that had ASCII animation and ran a whole bunch of functions. My dad was pretty impressed.
When I'm on top of my game, I type about 100 words a minute. Today I think I'm only typing about 3.
I never learned to type- and still don't know how to type properly. That said, I am a very fast three finger typist. My friends say they have never seen someone type as fast as I do with only three fingers. If you listen to me type without watching how I am doing it, it sounds like I know what I am doing. I would still like to learn how to type correctly one day, but I haven't gotten around to it quite yet.
Liz and Spencer - The piano connection fascinates me...
Spencer again - Yes, you were meant for bigger and better things than simply being a typist. :)
Sour - Why is it that we girls type like maniacs?
Bearette - Idiosyncrasy works for me. I wish I didn't know how to type properly so I'd still have my own style that I used to have as a kid. However fast John Krasinski types is fast enough to me!
Avi - I know you and I type comparably, based on chat typing times. You definitely type fast enough to "rate". :)
Jen - If it works for you to type with three fingers you may not want to learn how to type "correctly" because it might just slow you down...
SHUT UP!!!!!!!
That is EXACTLY how I learned to type. Only it wasn't my older brother it was me and my younger brother while he read lines to me and I typed them in on the Commodore64 blue screen.
We are SO separated at birth. Except for the cheese thing. I'm totally lactose intolerant.
Molly - That's SO WEIRD!!! I have never ever met anyone else whose brother read C64 programs to them while they typed. So strange that we'd find each other in this big world! And, shhhhhhhh, don't tell anyone, but I'm (undiagnosed) mildly lactose intolerant as well, but I eat dairy anyway. :) Makes life interesting!
Post a Comment