Korean Job Discussion Forums

Gopher · Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Can you type with all of your fingers on a keyboard, and without looking at your fingers?

I'm in my library and just noticed, not for the first time, that the people around me are mostly typing with only one or two fingers per hand and probably were never formally trained to type.

When I went to middle school, computers were coming in and typewriters were going out. We still had to take one semester of formal typewriting, however. I'll answer first then, yes I know how to type.

None of my friends in Latin America ever benefitted from this. Most of the people in the U.S., say, five to ten years younger than me, apparently never learned it either. Video game generation?

So, in any case, just to get a sample here, how many of you actually know how to type?

Hollywoodaction · Joined: 02 Jul 2004

I noticed the same thing,too. I asked my wife and she told me they never learned to type in school. I can type faster in hankul than she does, actually.

I can type without looking at my hands. In fact, I can now type quite fast because I was doing data entry for a summer job when I was a student.

mithridates · Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 4:24 pm Post subject:

Yes, with two keyboards.

PS people should switch to using Dvorak (though I think it's too late).

peppermint · Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 5:37 pm Post subject:

I never really got the hang of typing til I studied IT and had a reason to learn. You'd think online chatting would be enough incentive for younger people though

peemil · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Location: Koowoompa

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cruisemonkey · Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 8:51 pm Post subject:

I'm a two-fingered pecker. Laughing

SuperHero · Joined: 10 Dec 2003 Location: Superhero Hideout

I learned to type in grade 10 - class full of girls and me and one other guy. It was great and probably the most useful class I ever took in school.

I can also type in Korean, not so fast as English but I can do it. I downloaded a tutorial and practiced for a couple of days.

I couldn't imagine how difficult it must be to not be able to type.

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

mithridates · Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 10:21 pm Post subject:

I did some data entry work before as well where we had to process over 1000 cheques an hour through entering the monetary amount with the numeric keypad on the right, that was about the trippiest job I've ever had. Your lower brain functions take care of all the number crunching and the rest of your mind becomes free to do anything it wants. I would find myself suddenly remembering things that happened to me when I was ten years old, people I thought I had completely forgotten, and so on. Totally different experience than I thought it would be.

mithridates · Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 10:25 pm Post subject:

BTW the paragraph I just typed above comes out to 7.2 metres my fingers had to travel compared to 14 for qwerty, 67% of the time I was on the home row compared to only 29% for qwerty, only 22% typed with the same hand compared to 33% for the other, and only half as many keys using the same finger.

Try it, it's fun:
http://www.acm.vt.edu/~jmaxwell/dvorak/keyboard.html

Paste some text in there and see how much easier it would be if you used a better keyboard layout.

SuperHero · Joined: 10 Dec 2003 Location: Superhero Hideout

Where do you buy those keyboards and do they come with a typing tutorial?

mithridates · Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2006 10:49 pm Post subject:

The reason why I switched over is because I didn't have to buy a new keyboard - if you go to keyboard settings on xp (and probably somewhere on a mac as well) you can switch the keyboard settings to Dvorak, even though the keys themselves will still be Qwerty keys (you know, because they're painted on) and so you have to learn how to touch type. I set it up so that I can switch back to Qwerty just by hitting ctrl+shift...
And now I'm typing on qwerty again because I just hit control and shift,
and now I'm back to Dvorak. If I would've had to have bought a whole new keyboard I wouldn't have bothered.
I didn't use a typing program but just followed along with this image:

It takes about a month or two to get up to speed though, and it *will* screw up your qwerty skills until your brain figures out that the two keyboard layouts are meant to be kept in a separate area of your brain. Here were the stages for me:
First week: hunt, peck. hunt.....peck. Hm. Peck peck.
Second week: frustrating, and now my qwerty typing is messed up.
Third week: now using Dvorak for most things but still switch back to qwerty when I need to get something big typed out.
Fourth week and beyond: This is when everything started to get okay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard

Gopher · Joined: 04 Jun 2005

mole · Joined: 06 Feb 2003 Location: Act III

I took typing my senior year of high school as an elective. Remember the IBM Selectric?
Definitely my most useful class, after reading, riting, and 'rithmatic.
The skills were honed on IRC and MUD. I suppose those were nerdy hobbies, looking back.
But I liked being sociable and alone at the same time.
Wait.. what am I doing now?

pet lover · Joined: 02 Jan 2004 Location: not in Seoul

Mith, what exactly are the benefits of switching?