I’m in my mid-20s, and I taught myself to type using only my index and pointer fingers (plus thumb for space bar). Had about 80 wpm, but made quite a few errors.
A few years ago, I swapped to Colemak and took that opportunity to finally learn to touch-type. Now I’m at 95 wpm with much better accuracy, and I don’t need to look anymore. Feels way more comfortable to type too.
On mobile, I still use QWERTY and type with my thumbs. I can do that reasonably well with my eyes closed, considering the complete lack of tactile feedback.
Turner orr ep3ll chk3cker and typed this sentence with my eyrs floser. (“Turned off spell checker and typed this sentence with my eyes closed.”)
80 wpm with index fingers is pure fantasy. At least you admitted it was “with errors”.
I can use my big toe to type 10,000 wpm with errors by holding the key down.
Lmao yhat was a pretty good attempt to be fair.
Whoa, only one error
Dude you’re not hitting 80 WPM with pokey-poke
I worked with a dude that insisted his speed was insane and when we tested him and took errors into account, the actual WPM was more like 15.
Idk exactly how the wpm calculation worked or if/how it accounted for errors. I just used those typing speed test websites, but I don’t remember which. I know it would’ve been all lowercase, no numbers, and no punctuation, in a short, 30-60s burst. So I’m sure if you tested me under stricter conditions, my real speed would’ve been much lower.
And I used both my hands, so 4 fingers, making it less than 2 presses per finger per second which seems reasonable.
For my 95wpm, I tested my speed using the same conditions on monkeytype. But I did it again just now (30s, capitalization, punctuation, numbers) and got 73. I never bothered to learning numbers or symbols. Sorry, didn’t mean to mislead lol.
It’s at the upper end of what is physically possible, but it is possible. It would look pretty weird watching someone do it, I imagine. This is basically what high end Starcraft players are doing, except with a mouse added in.
StarCraft players have tons of different input styles, but most of them use almost every single finger. They’re also not typing words, they’re spamming the keyboard equivalent of arpeggios.
It’s not possible, period.
Your index finger isn’t what you use to point?
Mb, pointer and middle finger. I’ve corrected it.
Maybe his Index is on the left hand and his pointer on the right
👨🍳🤌🫴
Tbf, I very rarely type with perfect form like that. Maybe for short bursts when I’m doing an assignment but in like every other case I keep my right hand on the mouse and do any hot keys with just my left hand. Granted thats mainly a gaming thing but also in like GIMP or blender
Blender’s workflow of “One hand never leaves the mouse” is brilliantly underrated. They’ve made the UI more newbie accessible but I always encourage new folks to learn the hotkeys from the start, because you can get SO FAST!!
Seemed to become a rarer skill in the late 80s early 90s. It’s now at the point where I’m surprised if a co-op or younger coworker knows how to touch type. So strange with how “everything is computer” for so many jobs. How it is not a prerequisite for computer science courses blows my mind. I don’t think I could manage it.
The bumps exist so you can have an existential doubt of when will they wear out. Apparently my current keyboard was a better choice than I thought at first.
…my work keyboard’s index bumps are worn out; there’s a hint of a bump on the F key but the J key’s worn completely smooth…i broke both of my hands last year and had to hunt-and-peck with seven fingers for awhile; now that i’ve since recovered full use of ten digits, touch-typing is proving a real challenge…
If you don’t mind me asking, how did you break both your hands at the same time? Sounds painful and difficult.
…the injuries weren’t simultaneous; broke one on a solid-core service door and but thankfully i’d regained partial use just before clumsily slamming a car door on the other a few months later…
…both hands were simultaneously disabled, though, and although i’ve regained full use starting this month, my range of motion is still a bit limited with moderate nerve damage…growing less clumsy with mobility exercises every day, though!..
Why would then wearing out be so terrible?
theyre basically required for touch typing (without looking at the keyboard)
I don’t look at the keyboard. I don’t do home row either, though. I just put my hands on the table and magically know where the keys are.
The English Wikipedia:
Although the phrase refers to typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys—specifically, a touch typist will know their location on the keyboard through muscle memory—the term is often used to refer to a specific form of touch typing that involves placing the eight fingers in a horizontal row along the middle of the keyboard (the home row) and having them reach for specific other keys. (Under this usage, typists who do not look at the keyboard but do not use home row either are referred to as hybrid typists.) Both two-handed touch typing and one-handed touch typing are possible.
They aren’t required at all for touch typing, they are just convenient.
Source:i touch type over 100wpm and forgot they existed
Well… Ill explain for somebody who doesnt know:
Those are four your index finger. For the left and right hand.
So you can always have a base point for your typing without looking
Those are four your index finger.
But I only have two index fingers. Is that why I’m not good at typing?
I’ll fuckin bite because everyone else missed it.
How are these suppose to help when I have 144+ index fingers??? There’s not enough keys, let alone keys with whatever those little lines are
I mostly type with my index and middle fingers only and type 144+ wpm lol… My wife’s always like “wth”
It’s not just typing speed. It’s also comfort and strain on your wrists and hand muscles.
Good typing position significantly reduces the risks of carpal tunnel syndrome, among other things.
I strongly disagree. I firmly believe that the “proper form” you and I were taught is why carpal tunnel is so common(I don’t think it one size fits all) People should do what’s comfortable for them. In fact, I’m pushing mid-30 and when I use proper form I get uncomfortable pain, and if I get a chair that doesn’t line up the armrest with my desk perfectly I also get uncomfortable pain. It’s possible that growing up with computers like I did I found what just worked for me, but I’ve never found the proper form comfortable. I’ve had computer classes up into my adult life.
With a good chair (my Herman) and wrist rest (a wood block) I’ve had 0 pain and work at my computer 8+ hours a day. I never leave my desk with any strain.
Hell almost every engineer I know doesn’t type properly. For me, the real problem is I always tuck a foot under me and sit on it. 😂
I’ve met a few people like that. Often they don’t go to the gym or do any form of exercise so this is how they choose to exert around 5,000 to 7,000N/cm2 for each of those keystrokes.
With not a millimetre of irony in their face they then tell you they need this brand of mechanical keyboard because the “cheaper ones all break”.
I had to break the nerd cycle that don’t touch grass, I gym 2 hours a day every day after work. And, don’t you know? The loudest keyboard in the office is the most dominate!! 😂
Cool.
Yessir the right way to learn to type was to out spam the spammers in world chat on WoW and trade 1 world on RS in 2005.
whoosh
cant you tell where your fingers are by just looking at what keys appear on your screen?
Back in the typewriter era it will cost you whiteouts every time you do this.
would looking down to see the key cost too much time?
Ooooh. Thanks for the explanation!
I taught myself a personal typing style, because I found touch typing to be awkward, unpleasant and quite frankly shitty to follow.
So yeah, not okay with the implications that not knowing those lines means not knowing how to type.
It’s not about not knowing how to type it’s about not being /taught/ to type. Touch typing and the home row or whatever is what is formally taught.
Whether you touch type per the formal method or not, if you don’t know what the lines are for, ot means you weren’t taught (or weren’t paying attention) typing.
I was taught it in school in typing class, so the meme is accurate, but could be rephrased to something like: What do you mean you don’t know that the lines are for? Are they not teaching that in school anymore?
I also don’t formally touch type but it’s just a meme.
Even if they would teach it, people are forgetting so much of what they learned at school.
One of my friends from High School posted that meme about how school didn’t prepare him properly for life, because he doesn’t know how to do taxes, but at least he knows that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.
I had to comment: “I sat next to you in civics class, where we literally filled out fake tax forms to prepare us for doing taxes.”.
It’s ridiculous.
I can’t forget it. The evil teacher put a box over our hands and keyboard so we couldn’t see our fingers. The typing software made a beep every time we made a mistake and summoned the teacher. The exams where timed and every mistake you made in the final copy (you basically had to copy a paper document) cost you a grade.
I still fuck up sometimes today due to sometimes using keyboards with US, DE or Apple layouts but in general I’m quite fast and never need to look at my hands.
I hated that box. It was red and we’d just slump down in our chairs to look under it.
The thing that really helped my touch typing was playing MUDS: nothing like a textual goblin attacking you to encourage you to quickly type “kill goblin”.
I remember we did it. Though not that strictly. Just some program and eventually got a grade for it based on usually grading system. I would have never passed so strict requirements, well i never have passed so strict requirements anyway.
Our native language teacher had similar strict requirements. I didn’t pass a single exam that year, regardless of how many times i tried or for how long i studied.
So I’m completely with you, screw that type of teachers. Making mistakes is human.
I hated software like this. It caused me to make two errors immediately: knowing I missed the correct key and then immediately back spacing, causing the second error.
I took typing in high school decades ago and it was probably the most useful thing I ever learned there
I always saw it as “speed-braille”.
I had a typing class in early high school on a regular old typewriter. We had computers, but not enough for a whole class to learn typing.
We had computers and the typing software made a beep with the PC speaker each time you made a mistake. The beeping summoned the evil teacher to torture you even more, e g. by covering hands and keyboard with a box.
Later in high school when we got computers, someone discovered that if you shuffle your feet on the carpet to build up static then touched the lock (remember when computers came with a set of keys?!) the computer would reset.
“It’s not my fault Miss, the computer has reset! Can you help?”. (This particular teacher was young, attractive, and sometimes didn’t wear a bra).
In the early 90s, we had little keyboard trainers with a row of LED lines at the top (like calculator screen) that would be carted into the classroom and we’d do lessons as a class.
Why learn typing? Just let the Ai do it! Pfft!
/s
sad Mavis Beacon sounds
They don’t teach much of anything anymore. Schools are babysitters that give grades.
“just ask AI”
tbf i loved computers when they first became common cuz i could do tutorials on them and tutorials arent emotional and grow impatient and say it doesnt have time for all my questions.
which just goes to show just how there is lots of bad teachers out there.
so i get it. especially for neuro divergent peeps who are legitimately curious and are trying but scared to take up anyone’s time, i really get it. Personally i think its good OP brings a question and people who do have time do answer.
this is the way.
I read something yesterday about influencers posting about history and inserting themselves in historical locations/events using ai.
They place themselves in-between survivors on a boat, while the Titanic sinks, for example. Making themselves look as miserable as the others.
Their motivation is that they think that teaching using textbooks is incompatible with many students and just plain boring.
Not just influencers. EdTech, including Khan Academy, is pushing AI to make virtual versions of historical figures to engage students.
Hi Lisa! I’m Gehngis Khan. You’ll go where I go! Defile what I defile! Eat who I eat!
I mean history shows always have done reenactments. It’s just the current iteration of that.
The last keyboard I built I went with blank keycaps to force myself to learn to fully use the keyboard without looking.
I also can’t spell
They didn’t teach typing when I was in school. I guess it’s an assumed skill? Anywho, I still knew what those notches/bumps were for :3
80s kid here, we learned on typewriters and the shared apple ii in the library. I was good at it because I knew piano and it just settled easy in my mind.
I made it mandatory for my kids to learn because I just knew this shit would be needed. Also didn’t allow for short words like LOL until they could type it out. Daughter got to a point where her “laugh out loud” was amazingly fast and she begged me to let her “be normal” lmfao.
Out of curiosity, about when were you in grade school? I learned touch typing in the late 90s in middle school. I remember laminated construction paper taped to each keyboard so we could learn visually first, then had to flip it over and cover our hands to start developing the muscle memory for each set of keys.
Not who you asked but I was in highschool in the 2010s and they had a typing class but it was an elective.
We didn’t start IT until 5th grade, which would’ve been in 2012-2013 :3
Shifting of focus (eyes to keyboard then back to screen) can slow you down a lot. With computers I just stare at the keyboard and type. Problem with this is when something happens on the screen and the cursor is no longer where I think it is.
What I hate is the forced use of the mouse. Either make it all mouse or all keyboard navigable. In fact, with people having to use screen readers, all forms need to be keyboard navigable.
