How do you work against muscle memory to change a physical habit?
I type on a keyboard with only my two middle fingers. This was likely more efficient for my tiny hands at five years old than methods urged by the typing CD-ROMs we had at that time. However as I grew more proportional to a standard keyboard, this early typing style has persisted. I have no idea where to even begin changing this now as it’s been deeply ingrained by decades of habit. Anybody have experience with changing a muscle memory based habit like this?
Our typing class in high school was this teacher spouting nonsense letter combos and us following those dqyvafter day until we had covered home row , upper and lower, then moving onto coping sentences.
Reptitiion works.
Find your home row dimples on the key board then today is fjf fjf fjf fjf fjf fjf, tomorrow is another
Now I'm curious about when the dimples were introduced and what was the first device to use them, I just took a look to my collection of typewriters and none of them have dimples.
Totally unsure if this is accurate, but chatgpt is 100% confident LOL.
Brand/Model Approximate Introduction Year Homing Nubs on F and J Keys
IBM Selectric 1961 Yes
Royal Quiet Deluxe 1939 Yes
Hermes 3000 1958 Yes
Olivetti Lettera 22 1950 Yes
Underwood Standard 1929 Yes
Couldn't find images showing these. Looks like on computers their is info about it starting in 83
The lettera 22 I can assure you doesn't have the bump because I have one, the same goes for any other Olivetti I have.
The most modern typewriter I can think of is the IBM wheelwriter, in the pictures I can't see any bump but I can't find pictures with high enough resolution to be sure.
Same here, I saw one picture of the IBM that looked like it could have bumps, but the pixelation also meant it could just be reflections due to the convex shape.
Also if you have old typewriters, its a faux pas not to share pictures LOL
I learned on manual typewriters in middle school (late 70's, early 80's). We learned to look for our home row, then pay attention to copy or dictation.