passatdoc
Well-known member
well, technically speaking, here was my first keyboard.....
A manual Royal typewriter with electric tape over the keys. Typing class in fifth and sixth grade. Instruction was offered to the kids in the fifth and sixth grade MGM classes (Mentally Gifted Minors act in California, which established extra funding to schools that offered enrichment courses for kids testing in the gifted range). Wasn't much, two weeks twice a year for two years, but I believe the sessions were 1 1/2 hours, so it probably ended up being the equivalent of twelve weeks' instruction (if one hour/day), but spread out over two years. The idea was not to turn us into secretaries, but to prepare us for university, where all written work would be expected to be typewritten.
I never hit over 20-24 wpm on this contraption, but at home we had the luxury of a Smith-Corona electric typewriter, on which I was hitting 32-35 wpm by the end of sixth grade. So while I never foresaw that I might one day operate a computer, I could envision a day when I would own my own electric typewriter (this did occur, in eleventh grade, when the sole home typewriter proved insufficient for the two honors students in our family, plus my parents figured I'd need to take it to college in two years anyway).
Today, I could not do my office or hospital work without a computer (electronic records are required, paper no longer allowed) and I thank my lucky stars that I learned to type back in elementary school. Some of my medical colleagues are of the hunt and peck variety and it really slows them down in their work.
I still remember the typing teacher's admonition: "whatever you do, don't touch the Magic Margins (TM)" Actually they were easy to reset, as we learned in sixth grade, but in fifth grade we were not allowed to touch them. We used to speculate tongue-in-cheek about what would happen if we DID touch the Magic Margin keys, and the most popular speculation is that it would launch war with Red China. the typing teacher was itinerant (she would teach at our school for two weeks, then move on to another school for two weeks, and the typewriters moved with her) and was a real witch. My sixth grade teacher years later admitted she felt sorry for us because the typing lady was so hard to handle (and my regular teacher could not really intercede to protect us).
PS I served on my secondary school's newspaper staff for three years and we had a typing room filled with manual Royals. So while at home I could type school work or articles on my speedy Smith-Corona, I still had to rattle off rewrites or sometimes compose new material on a Royal manual. I remember competing in the state news writing contest finals. You saw a news conference (staged) and you had to come up with a news article or editorial in an hour. I brought my electric typewriter with me and I think it gave me a distinct advantage over competitors who relied on the manual machines supplied by the school hosting the contest.
A manual Royal typewriter with electric tape over the keys. Typing class in fifth and sixth grade. Instruction was offered to the kids in the fifth and sixth grade MGM classes (Mentally Gifted Minors act in California, which established extra funding to schools that offered enrichment courses for kids testing in the gifted range). Wasn't much, two weeks twice a year for two years, but I believe the sessions were 1 1/2 hours, so it probably ended up being the equivalent of twelve weeks' instruction (if one hour/day), but spread out over two years. The idea was not to turn us into secretaries, but to prepare us for university, where all written work would be expected to be typewritten.
I never hit over 20-24 wpm on this contraption, but at home we had the luxury of a Smith-Corona electric typewriter, on which I was hitting 32-35 wpm by the end of sixth grade. So while I never foresaw that I might one day operate a computer, I could envision a day when I would own my own electric typewriter (this did occur, in eleventh grade, when the sole home typewriter proved insufficient for the two honors students in our family, plus my parents figured I'd need to take it to college in two years anyway).
Today, I could not do my office or hospital work without a computer (electronic records are required, paper no longer allowed) and I thank my lucky stars that I learned to type back in elementary school. Some of my medical colleagues are of the hunt and peck variety and it really slows them down in their work.
I still remember the typing teacher's admonition: "whatever you do, don't touch the Magic Margins (TM)" Actually they were easy to reset, as we learned in sixth grade, but in fifth grade we were not allowed to touch them. We used to speculate tongue-in-cheek about what would happen if we DID touch the Magic Margin keys, and the most popular speculation is that it would launch war with Red China. the typing teacher was itinerant (she would teach at our school for two weeks, then move on to another school for two weeks, and the typewriters moved with her) and was a real witch. My sixth grade teacher years later admitted she felt sorry for us because the typing lady was so hard to handle (and my regular teacher could not really intercede to protect us).
PS I served on my secondary school's newspaper staff for three years and we had a typing room filled with manual Royals. So while at home I could type school work or articles on my speedy Smith-Corona, I still had to rattle off rewrites or sometimes compose new material on a Royal manual. I remember competing in the state news writing contest finals. You saw a news conference (staged) and you had to come up with a news article or editorial in an hour. I brought my electric typewriter with me and I think it gave me a distinct advantage over competitors who relied on the manual machines supplied by the school hosting the contest.
