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Ask HN: What's your experience of learning to type?

4 points by unbindableisaac ↗ HN
Bit of a shower thoughts situation... I was recalling what it was like as a kid to learn to write using a pencil/pen; these memories are relatively vivid. I realised that I can't recall the same about learning to type.

I figure I would recall being intrigued by the keyboard's layout, the feeling and function of it, and recall finding it cumbersome at first and then finding it progressively easier. But no, I feel like I've just... always known?

So I'm curious to know how others experience this.

4 comments

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meepmorp
I was a pretty fast hunt and peck typist, and then I got a job at a small company where the absolute lunatic I worked for saw me typing one day and lost his mind in rage. So I got paid to sit at my desk and learn to touch type.
russfink
“A lad had a real idea..” over and over. As a kid, I found this old book that belonged to my father.

50 years later, I have bad habits that I cannot break, such as always using the spacebar with my left thumb - annoying when I injured it this year. (Fast typists are shift- and thumb-bidexterous I would assume.)

SubGenius
My dad had something called Typing Teacher on his Windows 3.1 machine. I was too young to use it as a serious tool though. Learning to type "just happened" as an accidental side effect to using the computer all day long.

Same as you, I don't remember ever struggling with learning to type or anything. I could just do it.

More recently, I switched over to a Kinesis/Moonlander keyboard, so I had to put in actual effort to relearn to type. It wasn't as easy the second time around...

brudgers
Typing class on Underwood mechanicals.

Then another on Selectrics.

Both with an audio tape audioing "F F F Space."

Good luck.