A 17-year-old gamer who goes by mythicalrocket holds the world record for the fastest typing speed – 305 words per minute for 15 seconds. According to news stories, rocket also typed “The Hobbit,” a tome with more than 400 pages, “in less than six hours.”
Rocket reached these supersonic speeds on an Apex Pro keyboard.
Pretty darn good, rocket. Now let me tell you what typing was like when I was in high school.
We used manual typewriters. In my touch-typing class, I reached the astonishing speed of 45 words per minute – with an amazing 47 errors. I didn’t have a lightweight high-tech keyboard, either. The keys on a manual were heavy and you had to pound them.
I used a Remington typewriter, a green tanklike beast. Talk about heavy metal – in the late 1960s typewriters weighed between 25 and 40 pounds. A professional typist could achieve 80 words per minute on these monsters, with no errors.
So why I am telling you about my pathetic 45/47?
I worked hard to screw up my typing. Back then, careers for women were rare. We were supposed to get married and have kids. Before the kids arrived, we could work as teachers, nurses or secretaries.
Nothing wrong with those professions, but they weren’t for me. I wanted to be a reporter. I figured if men didn’t have to learn to type, neither did I. Some part of my brain thought this was the way to equality.
After college, when I got my first job at a newspaper in 1970s, I was surrounded by men who could only type with two fingers, a process known as “hunt and peck.” I was proud to be one of these incompetent typists.
We typed our stories on cheap newsprint, the stuff that’s now used for packing.
Manual typewriters had a lot of disadvantages. There was no spell check, so if we made a mistake, we x-ed over it, or corrected it in pencil when we finished typing.
If we wanted to move a paragraph, there was no highlight and paste, or cut and paste button. We had to cut and paste for real, and we couldn’t use Elmer’s, glue guns or glue sticks.
First, we’d find the scissors (or steal our neighbor’s), then cut out the paragraph we wanted to move, grab the glue bottle with a brush, smear yellow glue on the paper, and glue in the new paragraph.
Since our news stories were often written on deadline, glue bottles could easily overturn, leaving yellow tumorous masses on our desks.
One more fun fact about manual typewriters. The only way we could get copies was with carbon paper, which got on your clothes and hands. Carbon paper was inserted between two pieces of copy paper, making a sort of sandwich. I was skilled at putting the carbon paper in wrong and carboning the back of my story.
No point in asking to use the office copy machine. They were expensive and restricted to upper management. I’d have a better chance of getting a pint of blood out of the managing editor than using the precious office copy machine.
On the internet, there are typing communities, and competitions for the fastest typists. Here’s mythicalrocket at work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGwKCi4FX84
I love watching those fingers fly over the lightweight high-tech keyboards.
That’s impressive.
But I’d like to see a real old-school speed competition on manual typewriters: deft digits manipulating unmanageable metal.
That’s the key to a real competition.
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Mornin’, Ma’am…
I know the machine you’re talking about… Dad had one of those monsters on a typing table – the metal kind with the fold-out extensions on both sides.
The summer between my junior and senior year in high school, Mom dredged up her high school typing book to teach me, and two school chums, how to type because we’d have papers and such when we got to college, and our school was so small it didn’t offer a typing class (we could barely field a soccer team… football? Fuhgeddaboudit…)
Didn’t get great speed/accuracy, but I didn’t (and don’t), hafta hunt-n-peck my way across the page/screen… and who’d’ve thought I’d need typing skill to draw? Working in CAD at the day-job is what it took to finally get me to quit cheating and looking for the numbers and most symbols (and I remember there being no “1” key – you hadda type a lower-case “L” for that digit)…
These days, I’m glad to have the back-space and delete keys instead of relying on White-Out or correction tape (though sometimes I do miss the “ding” and having to slam the return bar to the right).
Hey, George, how could I have forgotten White-Out. My letters were speckled with the stuff. Trust a musician to remember the ‘ding.’
Your last line there reminded me of this – The Typewriter Song…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g2LJ1i7222c
😁
BRAVO, George! I love this.
I was entering high school just as the IBM Selectric typewriter was becoming a thing. We had a manual typewriter at home but not as old school as the one pictured here. I remember the most annoying thing about the manual is the sticking keys.
And oh yes, the carbon paper. The white out.
Sometimes I feel we race headlong into new technology without caution or using our brains, but definitely glad I don’t have to use a manual any more. I can do without the sticking keys phenomena.
Me, too. I don’t think I could have written as many novels as I do without computers. I don’t miss typewriters at all.
You paint such a vivid picture, Elaine. Really enjoyed it. After I taught myself how to type on cardboard with a keyboard drawn onto it, I scored my first job at a law firm with IBM Selectric typewriters. And I thought they were so high-tech! LOL
You are definitely resourceful, Sue. Don’t get me started on the Selectric with its round balls. We had to change those balls when we wanted to type special characters.
Spot on, Elaine. I remember those days. My grandfather had been a reporter, and he could two-finger type with speed and accuracy.
My mom insisted I take typing in junior high. My kids refused because their high school typing teacher had a reputation for being a tough grader, and they didn’t want to lower their GPAs.
Glad your kids stood their ground, Terry.
Typing class was a miserable waste of time.
My senior year in high school I took Journalism and was on the school newspaper. I also struggled to learn how to type on a manual type writer and had an agonizing time in class. The beast kept jamming.. It wasn’t until I went to college and took a typing class that used IBM Selectric typewriters that it clicked. Thus, I don’t have nostalgia for manual typewriters. But some of the sleek travel ones sure look cool.
I still have a ‘portable’ typewriter, Dale. It was a Smith-Corona. Complete with case, it weighed 12 pounds.
Oh, Elaine, you brought back memories! I remember reversing the carbon paper to make a perfect mirror copy on the back side of the original page. And not letting the white-out dry long enough on the carbon copy so it made a gooey mess. And reusing carbon paper over and over to save $$. And the magical, exclusive Xerox machine that only brahman like the bank manager’s secretary could use, not us peons.
Accuracy was excellent b/c one was highly motivated not to have to go through the arduous process to make corrections.
Thanks for the memories and good laughs!
Oh, yeah, Debbie. When I was in a hurry, the glob of White-out took forever to dry. Sure don’t miss those good old days.
I, too, learned on a manual typewriter. I took typing in high school because I heard that the coolest girls in school were in the class. I don’t remember any of the girls but I can (60 years later) still touch type.
Now I do my first drafts on a Freewrite Smart Typewriter. It’s a typewriter style keyboard with a small screen. Then it goes to my Mac Air for editing. Good distraction-free system that encourages fast first drafts and separates drafting from editing. I’m still new to the Freewrite but it is a keeper.
Typing was the best choice I made in high school except for knowing Rosemary. She’s gone now, but I still remember her.
Haven’t heard of the Freewrite Smart Typewriter, Brian. Thanks.
High school typing class. I played football in high school. I broke my thumb at football practice. The coach looked at my first cast and said if the doctor signed off, I could play with it. I go to the doctor. He asks what position I play. Nose tackle. He then builds a defensive lineman safe cast around my hand. There is more than a quarter inch of plaster (fiberglass casts are for rich kids in 1979) around my hand. No bringing rocks on the field.
Back to typing class. I passed typing with only the use of nine fingers. I think all of the typewriters survived getting banged on by a high school student with a 5 pound rock around his hand.
Wow! Kudos for getting through that typing class with a broken thumb, Alan! FWIW I was also in high school in 1979, that was my senior year in fact.
You are tough, Alan, getting through typing class and football with a broken thumb.
I’m “old school” too. I learned in school on old Underwood manuals that were in fairly good repair. I was pretty good in high school, but I was an anomaly – a boy in a class with all girls. I applied for a job right out of high school in an office and the lady interviewing me said, “I’m always impressed by a boy who can type.” After college, I got into personal computers during their infancy. My keyboard skills were envied by my colleagues.
Bravo, Joe. Glad you stopped by.
Ah, the memories. I also learned to type on an Underwood typewriter, and I fondly (or not so fondly) remember whiteout, carbon paper, and those little papers that had some kind of white stuff on the back so you could place it over a mistyped character, retype the character, and it would white out that one place.
I think those little papers were correction tape, Kay, but I’m still trying to block those memories.
I remember ribbons that were half black and half correction tape. A major breakthrough. And then, there was ‘erasable’ paper.
Never saw those, Terry, but ‘erasable paper’ resulted in big gray smears. At least for me.
I miss the good ole manual days, Elaine. So much so that I have a pristine Underwood No. 5 in my shack and use it when the opportunity is right.
Aww, Garry. You are definitely old school.
Yep, I learned on the old machines. I can still hear my Jr Hi teacher’s voice giving us a test. “Let’s get ready….type!”
I made my kids go through Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. They’re both aces on the keyboard.
I got up to 100 wpm on electrics when I worked as a temp typist in NYC during my acting days. First project was at Crown Publishing when Scruples by Judith Krantz was coming out.
You were a pro at 100 WPM, Jim. I bow to your lightning fingers.
Gem of a post, Elaine! Thanks for the memories . . . I think. 🙂
I learned to type in about 1968 at age 14, when I got my first job at the office where my mom worked. She was an expert typist, and I wanted to be just like her.
We had one of those monster machines that I practiced on, set up at one end of the dining room table. And when I entered high school in 1969, I signed up for typing class. I remember the clacking and dinging as the class of about 25 girls intently pounded the keys, and the click click of the teacher’s high heeled shoes as she sneaked up behind me to see how I was doing.
Those were indeed the days.
I have one of those monster typewriters on a shelf in the garage, next to one of the first electrics. I’m leaving those for my kids to deal with after I move on. 🙂
Just so the kids don’t throw those typewriters at each other, Deb.
I was in advanced classes, and we took typing because we’d need the skill for typing papers in college. Manual typewriters. My hands were so small I had to take my hands off the keyboard to type letters. Then the true joy of an IBM Selectric electric typewriter. Enough White Out to fill a bathtub. My first novels were written by hand then badly typed. One of the first PCs, an Apple IIc. These young whippersnappers have it way too easy.
“These young whippersnappers have it way too easy.”
Yes, they do, Marilyn. I could show them real suffering.
Along with many other boys, I took typing from Mr. Coopersmith in Jr. High, then again in HS one summer from a lady whose name I can’t recall. Was it Brauner? I served Drs. Reaves and Russell as USC Astronomy Dept. secretary for Fall semester, 1959. This was mostly typing exams and a very few letters. With little to do, I spent more time studying, got my highest GPA for that semester. About 5 years ago, I was given Dr. Reaves’ Olympia typewriter when I helped close up his house here in Palos Verdes. I still have it.
And well worth keeping.
When I was 15, and at an all-girls Catholic school in Mexico City, I had to choose one of three options for my ‘Manual Labor’ class for the year:
Making baby layettes
Making stuffed animals
Typing
I made darn sure, in the trial period in each of the groups, that I ended up in the typing group for the rest of the year – and still use my fast, ten-finger typing skills every day.
That was 1965!
Typing was the GOOD option.
I also went to Catholic school, Alicia. I was trying to avoid “homemaking skills” and “sewing.”
We had a heavy-duty Remington at home, like the one you describe, but black. My keystrokes are still heavier than need be.
I took typing between seventh and eighth grade in summer classes at the local public school. Thought I might need it.
This led to my downfall.
Journalism. Page layout and print production. Theatre, and show publicity. Music, and program notes. Radio, and radio journalism . . . and then (GASP!) technical writing.
The depravity never ceases.
Yikes, Tom! What a terrible story.
I took personal typing at Ritenour H.S. the summer before 9th grade, the earliest I was allowed to (still at the jr. high for another year), and my parents bought a portable typewriter for me . . . Dad argued it would be good for all the papers I’d be writing. The skill also came in handy to help pay for college, and for work when there were no teaching positions. I “got my money’s worth” from those lessons. 😉
I would tell students about the reality of cut and tape and retype for college papers, just to let them know how lucky they were. I gave my best electric typewriter to a student who was hoping to get one for Christmas. I hadn’t used it since we switched to computers, and I remembered how much I loved my first typewriter.
Sounds like you were a natural typist, Mary. Glad it worked for you.