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| Underwood Five typewriter. Public domain image. |
I learned to type on a manual typewriter. Just goes to show how ancient I am. It was one of those courses that I took to fill out my high school class schedule when the school wouldn’t let me take the courses I wanted (long story!). After the first couple of weeks, they wouldn’t let us see the letters on the keys anymore so you had to learn to type by touch! My poor little fingers hurt so bad from pressing the keys hard enough to make a good impression on the paper.
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| IBM Selectric "Ball" Public domain image. |
By the time I started my first job a few years later,
electric typewriters were in offices. I
remember when the company I worked for bought its first correcting typewriter –
an IBM Selectric II. It cost about $1200, more than most of us spend for a
personal computer today! It was the model with the little ball that you could
change for different fonts and had a tape for correcting errors. Very cool! I
soon learned to type backwards to correct errors nearly as fast as I could type
going forward. The only problem was that it really messed up your carbon
copies.
Before long, technology gave us word processors and then
personal computers. No longer was the typewriter the indispensable tool of
writers and office workers everywhere. I hear there are still some who prefer a
typewriter to a computer. Not me!
Yet I still have a typewriter—one I bought close to thirty
years ago. It has daisy-wheel font cartridges, will correct errors, and even has
memory to record frequently-used phrases. It is in the garage. Maybe I will try
to sell it in my garage sale next weekend.
So, my friends and family members, do you “hunt and peck” or type by touch? What memories do you have of the typewriter?
© 2012 Denise Spurlock
It's hunt and peck for me. I had a secretary/assistant from the time I was 21 so couldn't see the need to learn to type. How I wish I would have had a crystal ball.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to have keyboarding skills now.
Jill, there are lots of folks in your position. Many are quite speedy at hunt and peck!
DeleteWow! Down memory lane for me. I learned to type on an electric typewriter, White-Out and all. Business was my focus in high school so I took four years of typing. Needless to say, I "type by touch."
ReplyDeleteJana, I used to LOVE White-Out, but then I worked in an industry where it was contraband! I was in a college prep track in high school, but then we moved, and I changed to business. I have never regretted having learned to type!
DeleteTyping class was probably the most important course I ever took. Here I am still typing away long after I've forgotten how to figure the area of a triangle. In my class we used the manual typewriter for half the course and electric for the other half. Manual typewriters and rotary dials -- 2 things that require considerable finger strength and 2 things that I don't miss (not that they were torture but you know...).
ReplyDeleteThe business classes I took in high school (typing, shorthand and "secretarial practice") paved the way to some very good jobs! I loved geometry but could figure the area of a triangle now either!
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