Well, I sort of learned (as one does) in about 1986 or so, on an Atari of some sort or an IBM clone or just one of those computers that used to be around back then. Not my own.

I've naturally been going on that and probably typed countless lines in Usenet, IRC, web, notes, code, configs and whatever files. But it always bugged me that it's just kind of ballistic hammering with any and all fingers that happen to be near the next key.

So, I went and got a very minimal split keyboard to see if I can learn something new. The setup and layers and all that has not really been dull, but I've been pecking away slowly at typing.com and trying to keep my hands on the home row like it's 1989. I thought that might balance it out.

I just got the first unit certificate at 25 wpm. And, hey, I managed to type this post. Maybe I'll get better with time.

You could also learn an alternative layout like Dvorak while you're at it.

Touch typing was by far the most valuable thing I learned in high school, definitely worth the effort!

i was a pecker but taught myself touch typing pretty easily. it's more efficient, so learning is its own reward:

if you want some drama in your education, look into zombie typing-shooter The Typing of the Dead.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/246580/The_Typing_of_The_Dead_Overkill/

think there's web equivalents out there too

For folks not willing to make the full leap away from QWERTY, there's also Colemak that preserves the common key combos, such as Ctrl C and Ctrl V.

Also, a word of advice: all the keyboard formats which minimize finger reach compared to QWERTY (which essentially maximized finger reach to accommodate mechanical typewriters) will cause poor word prediction on Swype-style virtual keyboards on mobile phones. This is because optimized keyboard formats try to keep words as close to the home row as possible, so many words using Swype will just be sliding your finger left and right over the home row, which destroys accurate prediction. This is why I'm QWERTY on mobile but Colemak on desktop.

I second the colemak recommendation.

I third it, but it's not that easy and you must be dedicated. It took me 6 months to write properly.

Also https://monkeytype.com/

I too have God awful typing etiquette and I'm playing with QMK on a 60% keyboard. I'm also seriously eyeing up the cheapino keyboard. I suspect I'm just a few steps behind you on the same path. Which keyboard did you get? May I see your layers?

I went and got a very minimal split keyboard

You'll never be dull ever again!

Look into dvorak, it will definitely increase your wpm once you learn it. Also better on the fingies with all the most used letters near each other.

Would have to get a mechanical board or some stickers though.

Interesting. When I switched to Dvorak it only took a week to stop feeling weird and another two or three to get up to speed. Maybe it being very different helped. Sometimes when I'm learning something that's close to what I already know in other areas of life it can be more difficult. What I could never quite get set as far as typing goes was backspice layout on a twiddler. Never got over the hump from learning to functional.

Funnily enough, I was given typing tutor games as a kid, didn't really spend much time with them, never really developed proficiency because as a 10 year old I didn't have a reason to type in my life and Magic School Bus was more fun.

Fast forward a few years and MSN messenger was a major tool of teen social interaction. You could use it to hit on girls. Knowing what I knew from that typing tutor game, I started IMing friends. I can now touch type at 100WPM.

Edit to elaborate: I do rest my hands on the home row but I have several "bad" habits. I almost entirely use left shift, including for QAZ, I shift my whole hand over one, hold Shift with my little finger and type the letter with my ring finger. Depending on the word I'm typing, I strike the Y key with either index finger. Growing up, I had a Compaq Presario that came with a split space bar, the left half of the space bar was a duplicate backspace key, so to this day I still strike Space with only my right thumb.

I spent a lot longer than I should have doing hunt-and-peck. I mean, I live on computers, and it made sense to learn, but it was a temporary speed hit, and it was always seductively faster to go back to hunt-and-peck. Did various typing programs in school, but it didn't stick. Years of computer use, and still did it using hunt-and-peck.

IIRC it wasn't until I was about thirteen and taking a computer science course (which was worse to touch-type in, because it heavily used symbols) that I finally said, "Okay, that does it. I'm investing the time to learn to do this right, because I'm definitely going to come out ahead in the long run touch typing" and hit the point of forcing myself not to hunt-and-peck.

It really is a damned useful skill, and I'm kinda bummed out by the fact that I think that a lot of kids these days are only using Android or iOS devices and often don't have a physical keyboard. I'd bet that touch typing skills are a lot less prevalent today than they were.

I'd be okay with touch typing going away if we had some successor technology for inputting data into computers that was generally-superior. But even if we had flawless speech recognition, the noise pollution in generates (not to mention the lack of security) means that it probably isn't going to be what one uses for general text input.

Maybe with some sort of fancy subvocalization pickup gear or something.

I think that at some point, we will ultimately get some kind of brain-computer link. But as of yet, we don't have anything like that in general use---it's still a research area.

One problem with using a nonstandard layout is that it makes you depend on using a keyboard that you control.

I don't use Dvorak or another non-QWERTY layout, but I do swap Caps Lock and Left Control. I'd say that that's a preferable layout in general, since I think that virtually all users use Control more than Caps Lock, but if you're a serious emacs user, you really need the traditional Unix-style layout, because you use Control heavily.

But it also means that if I'm on another system that I haven't configured, I'm prone to making mistakes, and I'm slower.

The Magic School Bus is still fun, btw. Check the new version if you haven't seen it yet - it's got all updated science.

Yeah, I have no chance to get any sort of data entry job lol.

This is why I’m QWERTY on mobile but Colemak on desktop.

One of the things that really amazes me is that mobile --- which is a widely-used platform --- hasn't seen a major, widespread, substantial adoption of some new text-entry method optimized for that platform. I mean, I am pretty confident that there are better things you can do with phone hardware for text input than an onscreen QWERTY keyboard. People have tried a lot of variants, but nothing has really become mainstream. I think that something would need to be bundled into iOS and Android as a standard input mechanism for it to reach the necessary threshold.

And yeah, sure, there's inertia behind the status quo, but for (a) a device where most people will only ever use their own device to a significant degree and (b) where anything that's software can be swapped out with just software changes, I'm surprised that more fundamental changes haven't happened.

Like, I'm sure that many people would like the ability to input text without looking at the screen. Or an input mechanism that's less error-prone --- onscreen keyboards on phone screens have pretty small keys.

And while I get "just use QWERTY" made sense when phones were starting out, because a lot of people knew how to touch-type but didn't know how to input text on a phone, today, a lot of people are using phones before they know how to touch-type. Like, that same level of inertia shouldn't exist for new users.

I've tried a few alternative mobile first keyboards. it is hard, same learning effort as learning touch typing on real keyboards and/OT learning new layout. I just couldn't stick to them long enough to get good enough. I'm not sure if mastery of them can manage to make me type on screen without looking. I think it's impossible because a screen is just not tactile. I remember I can type SMS so fast and 99% accurately with the old T9 without looking under the desk in class :P

Yeah I forgot how long it took me to fully get fast enough typing. But I've been typing in colemak for 15 years by now I reckon. I think I was learning how to touch type first because I want to flame quickly in league of legends lol

I think I accidentally did well for myself learning to touch type in QWERTY first, found out that doesn't stop the pain I sometimes get, and started looking into alternative layouts. This decision was back 15 years ago or so in college. I chose colemak. I have decent enough 80 WPM on a good day. and my QWERTY speed is around 25 WPM with semi hunting touch type muscle memory lol.

I have some anonymous Corne board, some choc switches. I figured that that will either make me see the light or prove that too minimal is too minimal.

Layers I haven't really worked out yet, they're close to default qwerty fi/se with numbers and symbols etc on 2 3. I'll need to rethink that or read others' setups to figure out how to get usual key combinations on various systems.

But the main focus is typing practice and ergonomic testing. So far, so good for that.

Once you get through the typing.com lessons, try keybr.com to identify and fix your weak areas. Eventually you can move on to monkeytype.com for casual practice

That's the process that worked well for me

Thanks. Tried keybr, too. Great that it has language and keymap selections. I'll need to play with that some more.

Nice!

If you get bored of Typing.com there's some great typing games for sale on Steam and itch.io.

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