Touch typing

From Free net encyclopedia

Touch typing is typing using the sense of touch rather than sight to find the keys. Touch typing places the eight fingers in a horizontal row along the middle of the keyboard and has them reach for other keys. Most computer keyboards have a raised dot on either the F/J keys or the D/K keys (or the keys in the same position, for non-QWERTY keyboards) so that touch-typists can feel when their fingertips are over the correct home row.

Touch typing was invented in 1876 by Frank McGurrin, a court stenographer from Salt Lake City who taught typing classes.

In July 25, 1888 Frank McGurrin who was purportedly the only person using touch typing at the time, won a decisive victory over Louis Taub (champion of the "four finger" method) in a national typing contest held in Cincinnati. The results were splashed on the front pages of many newspapers. Frank McGurrin won $500 and the world won a new popular typing method. This date can be called as the birthday of touch typing that is the basis of all typing methods taught today.

The most common other form of typing is "hunt and peck" (or two-fingered typing) which is slower than touch typing because, instead of relying on the memorized position of keys, the typist is required to find each key by sight. Many idiosyncratic styles in between those two exist – for example many people will type blindly, but using only two to five fingers and not always in a systematic way.

Some of the suggested ways of improving typing speeds in touch typing are: