Evelyn 🏳️⚧️
StacyI did!
Nope
Poll ended at .
Macumba Macaca@dancinyogi nope, on a Commodore 64 with Tempo Typen!
Marius@macumbamacaca @dancinyogi On a C64 mucking with BASIC
John Beresford@dancinyogi I feel the need to clarify my nope. I had a fabulous Brother portable typewriter from the age of 12, but I only ever pecked at it. It was another 20 years before I taught myself to type properly, and by then it was keyboards all the way 🤷♂️
Mike@dancinyogi It was my mother's, she taught me when I was learning to write. (Not this one, but just like it.) It was really hard to adjust to electric, after having to really use some force. I liked it better than electric, wish I still had it. I typed all my term papers on it in college. Ding.
[Photo of 1950's grey metal Royal typewriter with green keys.]
[Photo of 1950's grey metal Royal typewriter with green keys.]
PhoenixSerenity@Subumbral @dancinyogi This looks exactly like the one that I learned to type on.
An actual seagullWhat is this?
renata@Subumbral @dancinyogi Ours looked like this too. It was a workout just to carry it. So heavy!
@dancinyogi I loved typing class!
Jürgen Hubert@dancinyogi I did not learn to type on a typewriter as such.
But I _did_ use my mother's old booklets for practicing 10-finger typing on a typewriter to teach me this skill on a computer keyboard.
Fishmac12@dancinyogi mechanic 😎
nypinta🌻@dancinyogi And my mom was a typist.
Evannakita@dancinyogi This sadly isn’t the case for me, but I’m curious how you’d count the LEGO typewriter.
Alison Meeks@dancinyogi Can confirm full manual. Anyone in earshot can attest to this as they keep asking why I beat the hell out of my keyboard.
@alison Yes! I do the same thing! It's a hard habit to break for sure.
@dancinyogi Typing on those silent keyboards it's like did that register?
@dancinyogi I also remember my first typing teacher and her wooden ruler if you were caught looking at the keys.
I was also voted least likely to work in an office by the class. Have always worked in an office and on a keyboard. Should also be noted mean girls who ran that vote were found working in factories and scooping salads at the local supermarket.
I was also voted least likely to work in an office by the class. Have always worked in an office and on a keyboard. Should also be noted mean girls who ran that vote were found working in factories and scooping salads at the local supermarket.
WoodswalkedMy typing teacher used a yard stick.
Would slap desks whenever we got distracted.
cc: @dancinyogi
Steven Heywood@dancinyogi
My mum taught us on her old Olivetti portable when we were tiny tots. I could never master the oomph to speed-type on the likes of an Imperial sit-up-and-beg.
My mum taught us on her old Olivetti portable when we were tiny tots. I could never master the oomph to speed-type on the likes of an Imperial sit-up-and-beg.
cmtinkerton 🇺🇸 🌊 🌎@dancinyogi I think I was in 10th grade? We had a typing class in school!
I graduated in 1980, btw! 🙂
I graduated in 1980, btw! 🙂
Atiya@dancinyogi I still and a terrible typist though, even as things have evolved.
Chris Gerhard 
@dancinyogi what's the definition of real here? Manual?
Leonardo Ferreira Fontenelle@dancinyogi Not sure! As a kid I had some access to each. I only learned to touch type in a computer keyboard, though.
Nelson@dancinyogi I did not originally learn to type on a typewriter, my parents were very keen on computers and had me in front of one as soon as I could sit up.
But I did get into typewriters later in life, so I have also learned to type on a real typewriter.
acm@skyfaller @dancinyogi hah! I think I was messing around on my grandmother's typewriter (maybe electric?) 10-12 years before the first computer was in my (school) environment! 🤣 #Old
Morticia Twoturbo@dancinyogi I took a typewriting class in junior high, we used onion paper (that's how long ago haha).
JulieB@Foreversighing @dancinyogi Onion paper! There's a throwback! Ha!
Sue B.@dancinyogi I learned to type on a typewriter in 5th grade.
@dancinyogi @Doreen32128 I’m glad I never had to use a typewriter for high school or college papers. That seems like it would have been torture.
Doreen32128 ready to rumble!@progressivecat @dancinyogi It was torture! Making an error screwed the entire document up!
RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist@dancinyogi
I actually had a manual typewriter. You really had to push each key down hard (and as an 11-year old, that took strength). My Mom saw I was serious at writing and got me a Smith-Corona that had switchable cartridges, one for ink, one for white-out. I really needed that! The keys had a nice feel. My recollection is that I wrote my first novella and my first novel on the machine. After the novella, I was a touch typist. Never took a class.
Soon it was on to a terminal with a typewriter keyboard and a 56K Cat modem to use a time-share computer at university. That seems like so long ago that my memories should be in B&W and sepia-toned.
Mike T.@sfwrtr @dancinyogi I get great joy from typing on a manual #typewriter, to be honest. I have them set up everywhere the mood may strike me. They are the perfect balance, the perfect writing partner for me. Fast, legible, and just slow enough that I can rethink the sentence before I get to the end of the line, but plenty fast enough when I'm on a roll.
And 56k #modem? Very modern! :)
Wrote the first novella the winter of 75-76. 78 for the modem.
So, do you OCR the typewritten manuscript? You don't gasp retype it!?
@sfwrtr @dancinyogi
I used a #typewriter for #NaNoWriMo one year, but the success of the #OCR depended on typeface and paper quality.
Fortunately, most all of my daily writing is me for alone and so, as with Nanowrimo, needn’t be ocr'd. Or even read again.
My paid writing, of course, had to be submitted in Frame, embedded in the #sourcecode, or (ugh) in Word.
Martin 🧀@mftassano @sfwrtr have you checked https://www.usbtypewriter.com/ ? You can still write on paper and get the result on a SD card for easier export.
@mart_e @mftassano
That USB typewriter conversion hardware is kind of nuts. I'd consider trying it if I still had any typewriters. I lost track of my Smith Corona electric typewriter when I received an Apple ][ for my 21st birthday.
That USB typewriter conversion hardware is kind of nuts. I'd consider trying it if I still had any typewriters. I lost track of my Smith Corona electric typewriter when I received an Apple ][ for my 21st birthday.
Stevens R MillerThis is no longer relevant, but when I took typing in 1976 I was quite surprised to learn that all typing speed records were set on manuals. By the time electrics came around, the fastest typists were already too fast for the electric machines to be able to keep up with them.
Obviously, computer keyboards have no such issues with speed. But it sure was interesting to hear of a case where the more modern tech was the inferior tech, in a way.
Bruce ArthursGot my first typewriter at age 14 (long before home computers & keyboards) by getting enough points in a newspaper delivery boy competition.
(There *may* have been some creative accounting involved to accumulate those points. But I really *wanted* that typewriter.)
Borrowed a neighbor's handbook for learning to type and taught myself. Only ever got up to about 80wpm at max, but good enough it got me several jobs later in life.
MichaelI did.
Yet Water Was 
I was the only boy in the class (1986), and all my male friends mocked me mercilessly for it. Still able to bang out 60 WAM, who's laughing now, b*tches??
hugo.@dancinyogi it was on my great-grandfather's Olivetti from the 1930s... I still have it, I'll never part from it
@grammaticus wow, yeah, I wouldn't either.
Stefan Scholl@dancinyogi I typed for 8 years and then had to take a course that was using real typewriters.
Not sure how I should vote.
Brian Danger Hicks@dancinyogi Well, I learned on our home computer, but then the mandatory typing class I took after that was on typewriters.
OobleckMy parents had a typewriter I’d poke at, but I was also lucky/privileged enough that:
1. my father was a teacher and able to get an Apple IIc through the school district.
2. My older brother got really into BBS’s for a while.
3. My elementary school got funding for a lab of Apple IIe’s and we got to learn typing skills, Oregon Trail, and drawing with LOGO.
1. my father was a teacher and able to get an Apple IIc through the school district.
2. My older brother got really into BBS’s for a while.
3. My elementary school got funding for a lab of Apple IIe’s and we got to learn typing skills, Oregon Trail, and drawing with LOGO.
Apenas um Gaucho por aiLearned to type on a keyboard.
Joel Jucá@dancinyogi FWIW, I learned touch-typing in a program that simulated a typewriter, and you had to write some words without looking at the keys 😅
I definitely can't remember the name of it – it was +20 years ago.
Robert Logger 🇳🇱@dancinyogi I passed my test on May 13th 1981.
Jim. From Kansas.@dancinyogi I learned in 7th grade typing class, with the teacher either calling out the letters or playing a recording for us to type along with. This was in 1977.
By the time I was in high school, my dad had acquired a government-surplus IBM Selectric. I still remember the electric hum and the thunk as the ball hit the paper. And that it weighed roughly three tons.
By the time I was in high school, my dad had acquired a government-surplus IBM Selectric. I still remember the electric hum and the thunk as the ball hit the paper. And that it weighed roughly three tons.
(moved)Galbinus Caeli 🌯@jimbush @dancinyogi you and I could have been in the same class.
Did you learn to use 'l' instead of '1' because it was the same symbol on pica, but used a stronger/faster finger?
I don't remember doing that, but it's possible. I did so little typing through high school that I regressed to being a three-finger typist in college, and didn't get much speed back until my second real job forced me to.
@jimbush @dancinyogi about once every six or twelve months, that synapse will trigger and I'll find that I have put an 'I' in place of a '1'. It's really weird.
Bruce Heerssen 
@jimbush @dancinyogi
My class had the Selectric II. They were really nice. They were a bit quieter and a little faster, had 3 color ink ribbons, swap-able balls for different font faces, and only weighed about a ton and a half.
My class had the Selectric II. They were really nice. They were a bit quieter and a little faster, had 3 color ink ribbons, swap-able balls for different font faces, and only weighed about a ton and a half.
@dancinyogi
_In theory_ I did. It didn't take.
_In theory_ I did. It didn't take.
Shannon@dancinyogi Best high school course I ever took. So very useful all these years.
Katja@dancinyogi long time ago😂😂after end of school my mother send my sister and me to the course, 😂no was not an option, and since I can touch type and have thanked my mom soo many times 😂 but absolutely hated it
Lance, Enjoying Copious Pollen@dancinyogi Technically, I never "learned"
to type. But my earliest experiences involved using a fully manual typewriter.
to type. But my earliest experiences involved using a fully manual typewriter.
heckj@dancinyogi @jackbrewster And a manual one at that, none of that fancy selectric-speed typing, the kind where too fast jammed the keys.