Did you learn typewriting the "a-s-d-f..." way?

These days, knowledge and fluency in typing has become a necessity. There are typewriting institutes here teaching the art. They also have 'shorthand'. I atttended the typing classes in 1973-74. Those days, they had old hard-key Remingtons, Haldas. I was given a junk machine (as to all beginners) to type on. It was so hard that errors were common and the fingers got aches. I requested for change to a better machine which they did not entertain. So gradually the interest waned and so one day I decided I would not go further on. But by then, I had acquired the knowledge of the keyboard though speed was slow and with errors. I had a dream of possessing a typewriter at home, for which I had to wait till 1994. It so happened that my office boss was moving out after leaving the job. So he had an old portable "Portugal" typewriter that he did not need. It was a good bargain when I bought it. I was using this to write letters to my penfriends, write short letters to the papers and so on. Just about that time, computers were making their slow and sure entry into offices where we were amused to see dotmatrix printers, daisywheel printers and later ink-jet and laser printers stunned us with their speed!

The first machine I saw was in my grandfather's (lawyer) office - it was a "Royal". When he took us little boys (me and brother) there when there was some shopping to be done at the market, we never missed the opportunity as we wanted to hit the round keys and see the typewritten letters 'clack, clack' on the paper. We were amused to see our spelled names 'in print'!

Computer keyboards have made the jobs much easier. Ask my wife who is a qualified typist/steno. She has seen the hard days of the manual machines when a heavy work load was a common phenomenon with tens of pages to be typed out in a day.

The machine with which I learnt was something like this.

You are bringing back memories Dinu. Ever get your finger stuck between the keys on the manual typewriter?

I started out on a typewriter at home, not too much different than the one you show (in my teens). The clacketty, clack on the old typewriter was kind of quaint. Amazing that we thought it was a pretty darn good machine (ha, ha). I did not touch a computer keyboard for probably a good 20 years later!

Yep, that looks really familiar. We had an elderly gentleman that worked in our office until 1997. He would not use a computer or a new typewriter. He insisted on using a model that looks much like the one you posted. We now have it on display. Well, we did before they started remodeling. Now it's tucked away safely until it can once again claim it's rightful place on display when the remodeling is done.

I'll never forget the sound, and I can hear it now. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, WHACK! Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk,
thunk, thunk, WHACK!

LOL Good memories.

Yes, some special memories cannot be erased, esp. those of the childhood days.

Joan,
We had a colleague that kept a TW by his side for little jobs in the office. He was a steno and later came over to the technical side and that love of typing never allowed him to discard a TW. It has it joy! My wife remembers the days when the group of stenos in our dept. (5 in all) used to type together letters and reports and that sound still reverberates (we used to work in the same dept.). No longer that sound fills the air.

Very often, two arms would get stuck to each other when the finger pressed two keys together! Almost getting the finger stuck in between, ouch!

Hi Dinu! I remember those days, also. I took a typing course after leaving school, so that I could get an office job. Our teacher played a record of the William Tell Overture at ever-increasing speed, while we typed things like: the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. (However, when I did get an office job, it was in the Civil Service, and I didn't have a typewriter: I actually hand-wrote letters and memos. My typing skills didn't find an outlet until the computer age dawned.) Now, I hear the strains of "William Tell" whenever I sit at the keyboard.

One of my friend's knowledgeable brother had shown that sentence "the quick brown fox..." and it was way back 30 years. It contains all letters of the alphabet. I practised it once I lay my hands on a TW. I found fun doing that. Besides writing short letters to friends, I had no outlet for the skill until the computer age reached me. I used to shy away from the prospect of the boss learning about my skill and dumping typing jobs and so I stayed more low key, trying to pretend not to know. But later when more freedom prevailed on our office functioning and computers got multiplied until I got my own at the office desk, the skill was really put to use. But I cannot type out the digits without looking. I have not practised that. My colleague is an expert in typing tables with numbers and columns but that skill too has gone with the emergence of the computers.

I learned to type when I was in Jr. high school. I have an old Underwood typewriter that I first learned on. Later in high school we had IBM selectrics. remember changing the little balls to change the type? I'm so glad I learned to type at an early age. It's been a life saver for me! :-)

I'm now asking my daughters to learn from their mother at home as it would speed up what they do on key board. They have not made an effort yet.

I too still have to look when I type numbers. An accountant once told me that he was taught to touch-type on a calculator by his boss, who made him copy phone numbers from a large telephone directory for hours and hours!

Remember the trauma of changing the typewriter ribbon, getting it threaded and tensioned right.....and the ink all over your hands? And does anyone have fond memories of typing with carbon paper to make copies? I thought not. What horrible stuff that was! Just touch it, and your hands were filthy, and left smudges everywhere. It was even worse when it was carbonated computer-printouts, which had to be separated. At one place where I worked, we had an infernal device called a decollating machine that extracted the carbon paper onto a roll while neatly stacking the printout...in theory. All too often the carbon paper would tear and the printout crumple up in a huge mound that took hours to straighten out.

Well, I'm off to my nice, modern office now. Thank goodness for computers and laser printers!

i learned to type while attending radiomans school in norfork virgina. we each had a manual typewritter in front of us that had no letters or numbers on them. at the front of the room was a large board shaped like the typewritter. we were learing morse code then and when we heard the dots and dashes over our ear phones we would look up at the board and see which key was to be pressed on our typewritters. it didn't take long before we all became "experts"

Herbie, what a unique way to learn! Things learnt the hard way are hard to forget. Do you remember the Morse Code still? For that, I'm afraid, you have to be in constant touch. Else it will wane in memory.

We have another colleague in office for his very clean method of handling papers and carbons. His work was a joy to look at. There were days when we used what we call 'manifold' paper which was very thin. They were used for 'office copies'. Even he handled this without it making a single crease on it. But other lesser colleagues had found it a messy affair. Cleaning the type-heads was another issue. An old toothbrush and some kerosene. And to top it, the boldness of the impressions from this man's work was as uniform as you can imagine. Speed accompanied accuracy, which is a rare talent.

Yes June, I remember changing the trauma of changing the ink ribbon. The tensioning was especially tricky with the two color ribbon (black & red). I could never get the carbon paper to line up properly between the two pages. It always went askew when I'd insert it into the carriage. Argghhh!

Ribbons, carbon paper, IBM Selectrics....yep. I had a very stylish portable manual typewriter I used in high school, and I think it's still up in our attic somewhere.

I worked for an attorney (in the mid 1980s) who still relied on true carbon copies for duplicates. (Typing an entire will without any typographical errors takes patience and skill, but the carbon copy must be perfect, too.)

The funniest thing about working there was the day a word-processor salesman tried to schedule an appointment with him to sell him on word processing equipment.

I invited the gentleman to look around and find the photocopier. While he was glancing around, puzzled I opened my drawer and held up a sheet of carbon paper. I pointed to it and said "THIS is our copier."

That convinced him and he snapped shut his attache and left ;o)

Nice 'joke' Terry. I once said to my friend that we have a water cooler at home (he thought it was something like a fridge). I brought him home and showed THIS. And see the next picture also.

It was in use then before it started giving a muddy odour. It was after that we stopped using it.

And I'm fond of showing people our vacuum cleaner cum dishwasher cum washing machine....... manual! Here it is!

Dinu!!!!!! That's terrible! hehehehehe ;o)

My dad used to joke that he didn't need a dishwasher - at least until I got married and moved away ;o)

I knew you'd laugh loudly. And I forgot to add that "our machine" does not depend on electric supply but depends on salary supply. And do you still hold that 'portfolio' of dishwasher?