A Touch of QWERTY

I have had a week full of busy office days after taking a week off from my Pesticide Action Network job.  Now, don't get me wrong.  This wasn't exactly a full week long vacation because we only spent a couple of nights away from the farm.  Part of the deal was we both needed to step away from jobs so we could spend some time actually doing things on the farm.  So, yeah, it was a vacation from the salary earning jobs, if you will - and it was wonderful.

Upon returning to the PAN job, I found I had a bit more energy for it - something I had been lacking for a while.  But, I also found my email inboxes full (both for the farm and PAN) and there were a host of things I needed to do and LOTS and LOTS of correspondence that needed me to reply.

So, I've doing a significant amount of typing.  After a flurry of email responses and a stint editing someone else's document I started to realize exactly how fast I was typing.  And, I gave myself a minute to feel grateful that my Mom taught me how to be a touch typist at a young age.

We had a manual typewriter at home that also doubled as an exercise machine for your hands and fingers.  Each key would cause a metal arm to swing towards the paper.  As it approached, the typewriter would raise the ink ribbon up so that it was between the top of that arm and the paper.  The trick was to strike each key sharply enough that it would impress some ink onto the paper.

The innards of our typewriter would have looked a bit like the one shown below.
 

Of course, Mom wanted each of us to learn how to be a "touch typist."  In other words, we learned where the "home row" was and we taught our hands to know where all of the keys on the keyboard were without looking down (other than to check at the beginning that we had placed our hands correctly over that home row).

Over time, I got to be pretty good with typing.  But, our typewriter had a few issues.  One of them was the fact that we didn't get a new ribbon very often so I sometimes had to stop and wind the ribbon forward past sections that didn't have much left to them.  The other was that if you got going too fast, you could end up with a tangle of those arms all jumbled up part way between their resting place and the paper.  Then you would have to spend time UNjumbling the mess before you could start again.

And, let's not talk about what you had to do if you DID make a mistake.

But, hey!  It was motivation to get really, REALLY good at typing.

At the time I was attending junior high they were still teaching typing classes and everyone had to take it.  The typewriters were newer and were (gasp) electric.  That meant you didn't have to muscle each key to the paper.  It also meant you got fewer ...er... jumblings of the keys.  Which meant you could type faster.  And, of course, they measured your progress by giving you tests to determine the words per minute you could type.

After the teacher reminded me that I did not have to pound the daylight out of the keys as I selected them, I started hitting speeds in the 80 words per minute range and made it to the 90s before class was over.  I was curious, so I took a typing test at this site just to see where I would land now.  And, that's when I remembered that typing tests require that you translate something from another source to your brain and then to the paper (or screen) as you type.

I'm um... not used to that.  After all, most of my typing starts with stuff in my brain that I put onto the screen.

My first attempt was miserable because I didn't realize a couple things.  First, single spaces after periods (that's a case where my training failed me).  Second, once you are off by one character with this typing test, everything that follows will be an ERROR.  Ooops.

Armed with that knowledge, I gave it another try and landed at 71 words per minute and 98% accuracy.  Ok.  I can handle that.

A Dvorak typewriter keyboard layout - from this NPR page viewed 8/25/22

I remember the confusion my siblings and I had when we were introduced to the QWERTY keyboard that was the boon for all well-trained touch typists and the bane of everyone else.  Why in the world were the letters OUT OF ORDER?  Who decided that asdfghjkl; should be the "home row?"  I mean, at least the darned numbers were in order - but what was with the rest of them?  Speaking of jumbled messes!

This interesting article on the NPR website actually talks about some of the alternative keyboard layouts that some have argued would be better.  For example, the Dvorak keyboard layout shown above places the letters that comprise 70% of the most commonly used letters on that home row, rather than asdfghjkl;. 

It is clear to me that the proponents for the Dvorak keyboard have never typed on a typewriter where you had to slam each key with enough force to make the floor shake.  I gotta tell you.  If you have to use your pinky finger as often as you would on the Dvorak keyboard, you'd be crying to go back to QWERTY as soon as you possibly could.

Or you'd just join the group of people who use your two index fingers and "hunt and peck" your way through life. 

Well, all right.  I'll grant you that the "a" is in the same place.  It's that darned "s" that would have gotten me.  And, why in the world would you put the "x" where your strongest fingers would be and the "v" and "l" where the weakest ones are?  

The article shows another alternative called the Colemak design... and I might concede on that one except for one thing. I'm already a touch typist on the QWERTY keyboard, why would I even entertain the idea of a different keyboard design?  

Um.  I wouldn't.  But, I might consider celebrating National Typewriter Day - it's on June 23 next year.

And now you know.  Have a great rest of your day!