Posted on 07/23/2014 7:09:30 PM PDT by Enterprise
Earlier in July, German politicians said they were considering going back to old-fashioned manual typewriters for confidential documents, in order to protect national secrets from American NSA spooks.
Patrick Sensburg, chair of the German parliaments inquiry into alleged NSA spying, said committee members are considering new security measures and are seriously thinking about abandoning email and returning to old school typewriters.
(Excerpt) Read more at rt.com ...
HA, I predicted this. The written word survived for at least 4,000 years on rock, skins, parchment, cloth, glass, and paper. One EMP could wipe out every word typed into computers.
70wpm is quite good. Enough for a good job at that time.”
It did lead to a good job. Went to work for TWA at $244 a month. Seems to me like I had more money then than I do now. Two huge bonuses came with the job. First, lots of young, single good looking guys worked there and second had a chance to fly non-rev. It was space available and I didn’t have any seniority so couldn’t bump anyone but it was free and got to see a lot of the U.S.
My first boss wouldn’t allow any corrections on letters and he dictated and I typed a lot of them every day. Established good work habits from the onset which have always helped along the way but also made me a very picky boss! It’s just a mindset which unfortunately isn’t present any more.
I very much approve. Low tech is the best!
I don’t know why I decided to take typing in high school but I did for two years and I have probably used what I learned in typing class more than anything else I learned in high school. Now it seems that everyone learns to use a keyboard but in the old days that was not the case.
Now it seems that everyone learns to use a keyboard but in the old days that was not the case.”
I think one of the differences was that we did all our classwork and tests using a paper and pen/pencil and wrote in cursive. Now everyone does everything on a computer and cursive is becoming a lost art.
Found that you can tell whether someone learned on a typing keyboard or on a computer keyboard by watching which keys they use when typing numbers. We old typewriter users still tend to use that top row of numbers. Newbies use the number pad on the right hand side of the keyboard.
I learned on a manual typewriter over fifty years ago but I use the pad on the right almost exclusively for numbers, probably because I used to use an old adding machine with that number keyboard and am used to it. I used to be very fast with the adding machine but I am much slower now on the computer.
I too use a ten key adding machine by touch and frequently throughout the day because of the type of work that I do. The way I do it works for me without slowing me down and I see no reason to change. Have enough other irrelevant stuff to learn just to be able to get to what is really relevant so I can complete a task.
At least someone had the wisdom to accommodate people like me by leaving the number keys on the top row where IMO is the only place they belong.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.