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It's weird reading about people not learning to type. We had a computer lab of Apple IIs that we learned to type on in seventh grade. Those weeks ended with a typing test where everyone had a plastic cover blocking your view of the keyboard so you had to type without looking at the keys. Then we moved on to designing pictures on graph paper and writing in BASIC to plot all of the points so we could draw them on screen. That was the closest thing to programming taught in our school district.
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Feb 17, 2016 06:02
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I was in the very last typing class at my school that used typewriters instead of computers. (At least they were electric typewriters. They even had a real backspace, with a little whiteout roller to cover up your mistake.) To this very day I put two spaces after a period, because that was the convention back then.GI_Clutch posted:Then we moved on to designing pictures on graph paper and writing in BASIC to plot all of the points so we could draw them on screen. That was the closest thing to programming taught in our school district. We did the same thing. Dozens of PLOT, VLIN and HLIN statements, all in a row. Man. I wish they'd thought to tell us about the most basic loops or branches...
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Feb 17, 2016 06:33
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^^ two space crew represent I learned to type playing Sierra games as a young lad. Starting with King's Quest 4 I think a dialog box would pop up when you started typing, and action on screen would stop, but before that it was all in real time. Poor Sir Graham drowned in that well more times than I can count before I could type "dive underwater" quickly enough. I took a word processing class in high school, which was basically using Word Perfect 5.1 to type business letters and other business documents. The teacher was very hesitant to allow me to take the class since I hadn't taken Typing I already (on actual typewriters) but she let me stay when she saw that I could type quickly, if a bit unconventionally. She visibly cringed when I hit the space bar with my index finger.
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Feb 17, 2016 06:37
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Return Of JimmyJars posted:This is what I was thinking of, weird. I remember this site. I even found the file I uploaded. It's been downloaded over 1700 times. That's a lot of downloads for something that just lets you move a 0 around the screen with the arrow keys.
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Feb 17, 2016 06:39
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stubblyhead posted:^^ two space crew represent Oh, the era before point 'n' click. Space Quest II was in real time. Add to that the problem of guessing the right words to use.
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Feb 17, 2016 06:58
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i took a "tech" class in seventh grade where we programmed a power drill to draw things in small blocks of wood. the next year, the same class was instead about basic html and the effect of music piracy.
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Feb 17, 2016 06:59
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For one weird year in mid-school we had LOGO course. Goddamn it was terrible and pointless. I've shown the teacher my collection of simple batch files like menu for DOS games with some wicked cool ASCII art and she told me I can't run those b/c I may gently caress something up on precious school computers. The fact there was no file operation command anywhere wasn't important.
laserghost has a new favorite as of 07:11 on Feb 17, 2016 |
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Feb 17, 2016 07:09
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AA is for Quitters posted:The death of the desktop pc. This myth is a relic but won't go away. The desktop has been dead for the past 20 or so years yet full-size keyboards and mice sell really really well for some reason. 3D Megadoodoo has a new favorite as of 08:16 on Feb 17, 2016 |
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Feb 17, 2016 07:57
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Unless, of course, you consider desktop computer a form factor instead of a use case which is kind of stupid since there is hell of variation in computers meant for desktop use only anyway.
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Feb 17, 2016 08:17
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Mak0rz posted:Ergonomics. I think you mean those stickers they put on the cord or on the back of the keyboard are what fixed carpal tunnel! Police Automaton posted:Also if you're working in a somewhat healthy way you're at no risk of screwing up your bones, and I say that as an emacs user. I don't know, I used to get bad cramps in my right hand, I think it was from the way I used the mouse. I think that less gaming and more using Emacs and other things that encourage keyboard use are probably why I don't get those problems any more. My left pinky is fine but my Ctrl keys are all pretty worn  CaptainSarcastic posted:Oddly, I have never done this. It never even occurred to me until you mentioned it just now. I inadvertently taught myself how to touchtype, so that might have some influence on it, though. I was taught to touch type at school, but it seems like I subconsciously do the WASD thing when I'm using the mouse and not typing much!
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Feb 17, 2016 08:31
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I largely perfected my touch typing through obsessive posting on another set of forums around a decade ago. I'd slump way down in the chair and do my best, eventually muscle memory learned what to do. Really kind of a dumb way to learn but it's come in handy.
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Feb 17, 2016 08:59
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It's strange that typing came up as a topic. I had a high school class that was called Introduction to Business or something like that in 1984. A big part of it was typing on IBM Selectric typewriters. The teacher would put a paragraph on the overhead projector and you had to type it exactly, without looking at the keys. If you got caught looking at the typewriter keys you got failed immediately on the test. I got a typewriter for high school graduation and that's what I used in college to write papers. Drafts in longhand on paper, then final copy typed out. No one had computers and the computer lab was all VAX machines I think.
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Feb 17, 2016 10:05
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I talked about it earlier in the thread but my typing class in middle school was supposed to be a technology course, and they got the shop teacher to teach it. We were supposed to type up some prompt in the OS9 version of notepad and print it out at the end. I usually copy-pasted my assignments and went on to gently caress around for the rest of the hour. Read a bunch of textfiles about doing illegal stuff. Some version of Mavis Beacon came with the Cd drive mom installed into our 386, or it might have come in an education pack. I also had Mario Teachers Typing 2, which is apparently just a slightly nicer looking version of the first one. So I have ADHD and back around the first grade I hadn't yet learned any coping skills and was a constant pain in my saintly teacher's rear end. One of the methods she and my parents came up with was that I would bring home a behavior report at the end of the week, and if it was good I'd get access to another edutainment title from a variety pack mom would get from Best Buy or Sam's Club. In time I calmed down and became a productive member or society.
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Feb 17, 2016 10:32
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Jerry Cotton posted:This myth is a relic but won't go away. The desktop has been dead for the past 20 or so years yet full-size keyboards and mice sell really really well for some reason. All those desktop PCs are probably running the *BSDs which have also been "dead" for 20 years. If something doesn't have a major market share and is used by just about anybody it's obviously "dead", not worth using, and couldn't possibly be useful to anyone in any situation ever. I encounter this stance especially with computing-related things all the time. IT is way too obsessed with wherever things are or are not dead at any particular moment. It's like people hate having options. (Thank god there are a few corporations that work hard on that problem) The internet and this compulsion of some people to having to agree with each other seems to have put that into overdrive. Well in a way desktop does still also mean form factor somewhat, at least for me. With "normal" PCs that's a plus because you can pick components for your usage scenario and also upgrade, which is not possible or at least fairly limited with higher integrated devices. My last main PC I had for six years which only worked for me because it was upgradeable by it's nature. I probably would still have it if I didn't need some particular features that just weren't economical to fit onto that particular aged platform. Never would've been able to do that with a higher integrated and also usually more expensive Notebook for example. I'm aware this is more of an "enthusiast" thing and upgrading isn't nearly as exciting as you usually get what you actually paid for nowadays, but still. (Also nowadays notebooks seem really flimsy to me and I wouldn't trust them to survive that long if not handled like an raw egg. I've got an 286 and a 386 Notebook and they both are built like tanks. The 286 one has been dropped by someone and is missing a corner and it doesn't even matter) I've thought myself typing too, I have no idea how fast I am or if I'm doing it right but I don't need to look at the keyboard or the screen and people have commented "wow you type fast" so it's probably fast enough. It's not really that important, you don't really need to type fast for many things, especially with people like programmers. Secretaries need to type fast. I've known a dude who typed faster than me but hit the wrong letters like half the time and kept going back and forth, it made you uncomfortable to watch that. Still somehow fast. Buttcoin purse posted:I don't know, I used to get bad cramps in my right hand, I think it was from the way I used the mouse. I think that less gaming and more using Emacs and other things that encourage keyboard use are probably why I don't get those problems any more. I had these gel things for your wrists for a while which actually caused my hands to feel all sorts of weird until they figured out that they actually make matters worse, I stopped using them and did nothing special regarding ergonomics since then, just taking breaks now (actually getting up and away from the computer and walking around a little) which is healthy anyways, not only for your wrists. For reliability I'm using a Model M. Also usable as a club. Isn't it funny how people nowadays use these overtly very well designed and approved complicated GUIs and touch interfaces which take five minutes to do anything useful with but I type a word into a terminal window or use a keyboard shortcut which takes me all of two seconds and I'm the one doing it backwards? Mice have their uses but they're really not effective at quickly relaying lots of information into the computer.
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Feb 17, 2016 10:57
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School taught us to type in 7th grade using mnemonic devices for each finger like "Red Fish Vanish, Then Grow Bigger". I already could touchtype but had to sit and play along for an entire quarter as we did these agonizing drills. And to this day every time I sit down to type something I still can't stop myself mentally reciting all of them. e: i learned to type from Mario Teaches Typing and from posting on Animorphs BBSes
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Feb 17, 2016 11:08
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lol desktops havent been dead for 20 years, laptops were rare until maybe 8 years ago
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Feb 17, 2016 11:15
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I was good at touch typing. In 7th grade, my teacher put a handkerchief over my keyboard but I could still do it pretty fast and accurately. The rock music option in one of the Mavis Beacon things was cool to me back then 
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Feb 17, 2016 11:22
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Nonviolent J posted:lol desktops havent been dead for 20 years, laptops were rare until maybe 8 years ago Do I really have to dig up my old computer magazines from 20 years ago that clearly say "the desktop computer is dead long live [whatever poo poo du jour]"?
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Feb 17, 2016 11:22
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Well, 20 might be stretching it but that was an arbitrary figure anyways. The point is everything has always been dead and the worst way to go about things, and every cool kid on the block has to use the new thing. I am critical of that. There's this dude I know who makes pixel graphics on his A4000 with Deluxe Paint for another dude I don't know for an iOS game. If the tool suits, why not? Also I'm especially critical of things that at the end of the day and even though being impressive technology, are just impractical for hairless apes to use because of how their bodies are put together. That won't change for the foreseeable future either. Not everything that can technologically be done also makes sense and there are also always lots of people who stand to profit from reinventing the wheel every few years.
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Feb 17, 2016 11:56
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Not sure how many people here listen to the Howard Stern show, but this clip is him going off on Gary about not knowing how to type. Starts at about 16:50 https://youtu.be/DksvdyPzhuo As for me, what really got me started with typing fast (and without looking) was Hugo 2: Whodunnit. That part in the cave with the dynamite 
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Feb 17, 2016 12:21
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laserghost posted:For one weird year in mid-school we had LOGO course. Goddamn it was terrible and pointless. I've shown the teacher my collection of simple batch files like menu for DOS games with some wicked cool ASCII art and she told me I can't run those b/c I may gently caress something up on precious school computers. The fact there was no file operation command anywhere wasn't important. Eh, Logo was actually quite neat as a language. Even more fun if you had an actual physical turtle. Better than BASIC IMHO.
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Feb 17, 2016 12:28
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Sten Freak posted:I bought AMD stock a long time ago when their 1ghz Athlon was king and I was a true believer in their products but as a company they have poo poo the bed for over a decade. It was not a wise investment. Their Athlons were great. Intel slung a ton of money at various OEMs to not take them up as server chips; it was Intel's marketing muscle and dodgy business practices that stopped them taking off, not AMD's engineering.
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Feb 17, 2016 12:37
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feedmegin posted:Their Athlons were great. Intel slung a ton of money at various OEMs to not take them up as server chips; it was Intel's marketing muscle and dodgy business practices that stopped them taking off, not AMD's engineering. Even though it wasn't by far the first incident, the run for the magical 1 Ghz made truly clear to me how shady intel is.
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Feb 17, 2016 12:56
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If Intel couldn't be taken out during the Pentium 4 years they just can't be taken out.
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Feb 17, 2016 12:59
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laserghost posted:For one weird year in mid-school we had LOGO course. Goddamn it was terrible and pointless. I've shown the teacher my collection of simple batch files like menu for DOS games with some wicked cool ASCII art and she told me I can't run those b/c I may gently caress something up on precious school computers. The fact there was no file operation command anywhere wasn't important. Logo was useful for one thing - I learned to use AutoCAD R12 just like logo - relative commands to move the line.
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Feb 17, 2016 13:08
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0toShifty posted:Logo was useful for one thing - I learned to use AutoCAD R12 just like logo - relative commands to move the line. Logo taught concepts beyond "draw a picture with a line" though. It taught planning multiple instructions in advance. Logo trains your mind to work in a forward thinking way. No one was learning logo for the purpose that the particular language would be useful someday. To a certain extent the same could be said for BASIC and PASCAL.
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Feb 17, 2016 14:15
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I remember when OS didnt have zip compression support built in and the first thing you'd have to get on a new install would be
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Feb 17, 2016 14:25
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I remember command-line virus scanning.
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Feb 17, 2016 14:31
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Or worse, this: It was truly terrible
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Feb 17, 2016 14:33
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thathonkey posted:I remember when OS didnt have zip compression support built in and the first thing you'd have to get on a new install would be I still use 7zip a lot.
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Feb 17, 2016 14:34
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Gonzo the Eggman posted:There are some pretty fast two-finger typists. You remind me of Das Boot on my 5¼ disk... drat I played alot. Main Menu:  Shooting down planes with the AA gun was so much fun:  The Gibraltar map, almost the only one I played because it was the only map that wasn't open sea, was easier for the 11yo I was back then.  The bridge on that map, with the guns on the pillars:  Maybe I should reinstall Silent Hunter IV...
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Feb 17, 2016 14:38
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GutBomb posted:Or worse, this: My former coworker was using this at least up to couple of years ago. Rupert Buttermilk posted:I remember command-line virus scanning. I remember it too. I used both fprot and tbav.
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Feb 17, 2016 14:46
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A FUCKIN CANARY!! posted:I never learned to type "properly" and don't worry about home row or keeping my hands in a certain position but I can still type without looking at the keyboard. I even use one of those rear end in a top hat keyboards that doesn't have any labels on the keys. It seems like knowing where the keys are would have to come naturally if you type often even if you're doing it "wrong". I do this too. I feel like most people that learned to type "naturally" (by exposure, as opposed to taking classes or using a teaching program - in my case it was hours of MSN Messenger and lovely forums every day) type this way. I do use my right pinkie for enter and shift (in the rare instances I actually use r-shift), but still use my ring finger for backspace. My current keyboard has backslash between the backspace and enter keys, but I don't use it enough for it to feel comfortable with any finger. One of my friends types "properly," using the homerow and all four fingers and all that. Even in highschool he could whip up a few phrases blazingly fast. Mad Monk posted:I still use 7zip a lot. I think many people do because .zip is kind of a dated format and 7zip handles it anyway. Mak0rz has a new favorite as of 15:30 on Feb 17, 2016 |
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Feb 17, 2016 15:28
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The desktop PC is dead! By that, we mean horizontal cases with monitors sitting on top of them. Or as people used to call them, "the CPU" or "the hard disk".
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Feb 17, 2016 20:02
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thathonkey posted:I remember when OS didnt have zip compression support built in and the first thing you'd have to get on a new install would be 
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Feb 17, 2016 20:08
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thathonkey posted:I remember when OS didnt have zip compression support built in and the first thing you'd have to get on a new install would be I remember discovering PowerArchiver 2000. It could extract zip, rar AND arj files! And it was freeware... at least, for some time.
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Feb 17, 2016 20:11
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Keith Atherton posted:It's strange that typing came up as a topic. I had a high school class that was called Introduction to Business or something like that in 1984. A big part of it was typing on IBM Selectric typewriters. The teacher would put a paragraph on the overhead projector and you had to type it exactly, without looking at the keys. If you got caught looking at the typewriter keys you got failed immediately on the test. For college I did have an electric typewriter that had a small LED screen that served as a spellcheck window and used a floppy to store files. Once you were ready you fed paper into it and it'd print everything out. PCs were a thing by then so this thing just bridged the gap between typewriter and WordPerfect. No idea what it was called but it was pretty terrible looking back. On the other hand I'm so grateful the internet was not around to waste my time back then.
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Feb 17, 2016 20:15
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Light Gun Man posted:The desktop PC is dead! By that, we mean horizontal cases with monitors sitting on top of them. Or as people used to call them, "the CPU" or "the hard disk". Used to call them? Keith Atherton posted:It's strange that typing came up as a topic. I had a high school class that was called Introduction to Business or something like that in 1984. A big part of it was typing on IBM Selectric typewriters. The teacher would put a paragraph on the overhead projector and you had to type it exactly, without looking at the keys. If you got caught looking at the typewriter keys you got failed immediately on the test.  I took touch-typing too but it was on an old XT machine running WordPerfect. It was a pretty valuable skill. To this day in my office I'll be typing away and I've had people literally come up behind me and go "where/how did you learn to type like that?" It sort of hard for me to understand how someone that is <35 years old and literally been using a keyboard for their entire life have to look at their fingers to type. e: typo because I touch type slidebite has a new favorite as of 20:24 on Feb 17, 2016 |
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Feb 17, 2016 20:15
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slidebite posted:Used to call them? They still do it? Has it not become something stupider by now? Are kids calling monitors ipads yet?
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Feb 17, 2016 20:18
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Here's the story of the creator of ZIP files, by the way. It's not a happy story.
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Feb 17, 2016 20:30
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