Typewriters

On the radio today I heard the sound of typing on a typewriter. Memory ping!!. Those were the days eh?
When ladies were usually to be found going down or expected to be going down the 'secretarial' route.

But, how about our gentlemen 'OFF' keyboard warriors - were you proficient with the good old typewriter?
Did you have any experience on a keyboard, or no way would you .... it was a female thing! Bet you never expected you'd end up years later spending long hours on a keyboard (even though these days it's different).

Dad was a great 'two fingerer'. He was a plod, so in his early days as a lowly PC, the two finger typing was the way to go typing up those reports and notes

At home we had an old black upright - probably an Underwood. It had round keys with a slightly raised steel rim around them. My nails used to get caught under those rims sometimes.... (shivers) it set my teeth on edge.

Thinking about it brought all the different sounds of the different models and 'feel' of the keyboards.
Then I remembered this:

Re: Typewriters

Back in 1965 I had a job with the Brighton Asbestos Manufacturing Co for a few months before returning to NZ. They wanted a truck driver who could type or a typist who could drive trucks! Apparently such people were in short supply.

Re: Typewriters

That brought memories back for me too, Pesta.

My Mum used to type, and in my mid teens I started office work and was sent on day release college to learn touch typing. I think we had to go for a year, but not sure now.

I remember touch typing at work, then doing audio typing too.
I know the ones you mean with the metal ridges round the letters too.

The make 'Olivetti' rings a bell in the back of my memory for some reason?
Didn't we have to 'change the ribbons' sometimes too?

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Part of my computer course at college in the 80's was a typewriting class. The class had to learn on new electronic typewriters. Geez they were awful because the spacebar was sooooo sensitive that the roller would shoot across the paper and you'd hear the familiar 'ding'.

We all had to learn how to change a typewriter ribbon, type 60 words per minute and also learn shorthand. We were also taught hand positioning, that being your hands here positioned so every finger on both hands had full coverage of the keyboard and that you had to 'touch type', not look at the keys while typing.

As the lessons progressed, we used to have a two pieces of paper, one with the text we had to type and the other was the same text but with short hand notation over it indicating what words, paragraphs and sentences needed to be changed AND all done whilst touch typing. If the lecturer saw you looking down at the keys, she would bang her fist on the table which naturally made the person jump.

Needless to say I failed the class. The only thing I could do was the 60 words per minute

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Really? Well you learn something every day!
You know Ciderman, one of my wishes was to learn to drive a truck. I never did though

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Yes, ending up with dirty fingers

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Many years' ago I went to a London company, Sight & Sound to learn how to touch-type. That was necessary in the printing trade as it all went over to the new technology with computers and keyboards. That was an interesting experience, first we were on manual typewriters and then on electric typewriters. The most odd thing about it all was that there were no letters on the keys, so no point in looking down at the keys!

It is essentially 'brain-washing' to the slowly increasing rhythm of a metronome and it worked. That was the most useful course I've ever been on, into the bargain it was mostly young women at Sight & Sound as it was part of an office training company. Very interesting that was!

Since then I must have keyboarded millions and millions of words, all without looking at the keys! However, I cannot use the keyboards on mobile phones, the keys are too small to use as 'qwerty' layout keyboards so I don't know where any of the keys are!

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I remember that

Dodge, you did well! What's wrong with 60wmp? (for a bloke )

I remember we had to press the keys with our eyes closed and saying out loud:

A S D F G, space, semi-colon L K J H

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Baz - how strange to have no letters on the keyboard!

Yes, ... it really was brain wash learning wasn't it?! We too had the metronome when we had to say out loud the A S D F G malarky to a metronome! I'd quite forgotten that!

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It was deliberate for there not to be any letters on the keyboard, no point in looking down at them so nobody ever did. All we knew was where the 'home keys' were and as you write the keys in vertical rows plus those in horizontal rows.

The final word count achieved per minute was also combined with only so many errors allowed. That was so long ago that I cannot recall the exact word count, not that the word count in printing would be the same anyway, our's was characters per minute with six characters being the average in a word including the word space. Also of course, no spell checkers in those days!