OSDev.org

Hi everyone. I'm new here, thought I'd brake the ice by opening a random rambling topic. And yes I did a global search on "typing" just so I don't clone an existing thread - but in case there is one, please let me now.

So the question(s) of the day are, when did you learn to type properly, at what age? Are you fast..? Are you accurate..?

When I was a young boy I was amazed at how some of the older folks typed in blazing fast speeds. At some point I even thought you could write entire lines of text in less then a second. But those were the days when I had just discovered IRC, and I never knew you could create your own commands to paste lines and lines of text. I was getting really annoyed at having to look at the keyboard while typing, so I was determined I would learn how to type properly. I think I was about 9-10 years old at the time. I started out with a bunch of shareware typing software. Maybe they weren't top-notch software, but they have helped me learn the basics. I have to say that was one of my best decisions in life. I could not possibly imagine typing with 2 fingers like my grandmother would do, hehe.

I guess I'm moderately fast at typing, but I think I'm going to try another set of typing software soon. I could just type text all day, but maybe there's something I'm missing (for example some of that software helps you type faster by using one hand only, which is something I never really tried). And even tho I can type fast, I have to admit that I make typing mistakes at faster rates.. Well anyway, enough about me, what about you?

Edit: Well, I just did a few test runs. I have an average of 86 words per minute, 96% accuracy. But that's when I'm not rushing it. When I get close to 100wpm I start making alot of mistakes. Practice practice practice..

I never really learned to type officially. I used to do mostly hunt-and-peck sort of stuff, with just my pointer fingers. But when I really got into programming, typing just kind of naturally evolved. Now I only use my pointer and middle fingers for typing, somewhat because I usually use an Eee keyboard, where you can reach all of the keys with little movement. But I'm still reasonably fast and accurate, and don't look at the keyboard. And because I learned to type by writing in C, I have accidentally stuck a 'struct' or ';' in an English paper before.

I guess I'll try and see what my performance using this method is and get back to you - it'll be interesting.

I tend to type slow (well, 50wpm, slow for geeks) but without looking at the keyboard, which is good enough for me. I also use the Colemak (http://www.colemak.com) keyboard layout, which I switched to nearly a year ago.

My OS, of course, supports Colemak as well as Qwerty

EDIT: Also, I never use my thumbs, but I use all my other fingers...

I learned to type properly in 8th grade. In high school I was required to take a keyboard class and ended up only doing the first week of the class and slacking off the rest as my first test showed a score of 125wpm with 99% accuracy over something like 250 words. I also took a typing exam for a data entry job I applied to a while ago and scored 115wpm with 98% accuracy. I'm just glad I was never tested on my num-pad skills.

NickJohnson wrote:I never really learned to type officially. I used to do mostly hunt-and-peck sort of stuff, with just my pointer fingers. But when I really got into programming, typing just kind of naturally evolved. Now I only use my pointer and middle fingers for typing, somewhat because I usually use an Eee keyboard, where you can reach all of the keys with little movement. But I'm still reasonably fast and accurate, and don't look at the keyboard. And because I learned to type by writing in C, I have accidentally stuck a 'struct' or ';' in an English paper before.

I guess I'll try and see what my performance using this method is and get back to you - it'll be interesting.

Interesting, I know a few people who never learned to type 'properly' but can achieve some amazing results. One of whom is my sister. She has the most bizarre way of typing, yet she can type both faster and more accurately then me. Then again, maybe she types alot more then I do. Most of my finger excersize came from dodging bullets in Unreal Tournament.

Well I'm not sure about C, but for ASM I don't think you even need to use more then 2 fingers from each hand.


I'm quite interested if anyone is using a Dvorak keyboard layout. Some people just swear on that form of layout. But I guess whichever you learn first is the best for you, as long as you keep persistent at it.

I can type fast, but typos are very common.. fortunately the act of correcting mistakes is mostly automatic.

No formal training here, just repetitive usage.. 85/95 wpm on average.

Well, I'm not too fast at typing - I average about 50 WPM. But I've only been semi-typing for a year or so, so I'm not too surprised.

One interesting thing about my typing is that because I don't have any set position for my fingers to be in and no specific finger for each key, my hands will sometimes both try and hit the same key at the same time. I also type things that require alternating use of each hand more than twice as fast as ones that require just one hand. And when I make mistakes, I also frequently catch them without looking at the text, but still make them initially. Maybe the way I learned to type created some increased lateralization of hand control that causes these things? That could be the reason for your sister's fast typing - if each hemisphere of the brain controls each hand separately for typing, you can probably get a superscalar pipeline of keystrokes (to put it in computer terms).

So the question(s) of the day are, when did you learn to type properly,

2008ish

at what age?

15 at the time

Are you fast..?

to a degree, it considers what you call fast... to me yeah fast.

Are you accurate..?

Yes although when I use a laptop with more cramped keys I may miss a key and get a different one time to time...

I measure my performance in 'how many assembly lines' before 'stop to think' break.
If the only thing that I am doing is moving data into a registers and back then I can write a 100byte(x86 + sse) loop in less than a minute. If its complex algo then break comes after 2-6 instructions(lines).

I'm surprised at the number of people here that have not taken a formal typing class. It is more of a fundamental life skill today than handwriting is.

My typing is really rather crappy for someone that works with computers a lot. I type slow and unless I look at the keyboard I tend to make a lot of mistakes, though it's usually typing 'e' instead of 'r' or 'l' instead of 'k' (QWERTY layout). At least I don't do the 'hunt and peck' typing some people do.

I need to practice typing without looking at the keyboard...

I don't know how fast I am exactly typing - but I think, it's not really fast.
I type without looking on the keyboard and I use my pointer and my middle finger most of the time - I use my left little finger for shift and control, my right for enter and my left thumb for the space key and the menu key. Because I'm German and I'm sitting in front of a German keyboard (QWERTZ layout), I use my right ring finger for the umlauts (Ä, Ö and Ü) and the "ß".
And, no, I didn't learn the typing stuff "officially".

/EDIT: Some people said they don't use their right thumb. If they were sitting in front of a German keyboard, they would, because you need the "Alt Gr" key for typing "{", "[", "]" and "}". And the right thumb is very good for pressing "Alt Gr".

dude101 wrote:I'm surprised at the number of people here that have not taken a formal typing class. It is more of a fundamental life skill today than handwriting is.

No, formal typing class isn't a fundamental skill. Being able to type somewhat quickly is.

I never had any formal training, and calling my typing style "touch typing" stretches it a bit as I am using only a couple of fingers, but I do type without looking ( my hands having memorized placements and distances long ago ).

I just took an online speed test (in English), typing in the dark, and came up with 60 WPM with one typing mistake, which I consider a fair speed. I'd also like to see how touch-typists struggle with C/C++/Java code on a German keyboard (which has {, [, ], } on Alt-GR 7-8-9-0, respecively).

I find it a little bit difficult to type words that do not make sense or new words.
My brains force me to type based on a certain "pattern recognition".If words i am typing are new or do not make sense,then
i will be below 20wpm . But if the text words are well known or if its my brains formulating them,then i dont tell
you what will happen

Yeah, all the keyboards over here are QWERTZ, but I use the English layout. The localized characters used in Croatian can be represented in English. For example the characters 'ĆČĐŠŽ' can be replaced with 'CCDSZ' and it's very easy to recognize the meaning of words. I wouldn't mind the local layout that much if the only difference was the location of Z and Y. But the Shift+Number characters are replaced as well, which confuses me alot.

I do believe it's more important to have good accuracy than a blazing fast typing speed tho.

As for writing, I totally suck at that. My handwriting looks like a doctor's prescription, sometimes even I can't decypher what I've written down. I'd almost want to put a double slash and a comment after the stuff I write down on paper.