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Mechanical Keyboards

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Lupercal:
She is one hot tamale.

Wow, and I can touch type and barely get to 90wpm. I thought that was good! No wonder I didn't get that job at the Houses of Parliament.

(Not as an MP, as a typist. DUH)

Anyway, what is all this about keyboards? Keyboards aren't gross. Unless we're talking about my work one which my predecessor delightfully left half a year's worth of sandwich crumbs in which have now fused to the keyboard itself. Yay.

bhtooefr:
140 wpm on a manual typewriter is holy shit level territory.

Definitely within the realm of possibility, but a typebar machine is an art to get high speeds going - it requires perfect typing cadence to go that fast, especially on a manual (where the typebar is on a slower arc, rather than being quickly released and retracted). Basically, on a typebar machine, the typebars fly out with the key action, and fall back when the key is lifted on manual typewriters, or immediately on electric typewriters. Only one typebar can be at the paper at once. Therefore, you have to time your keypresses to make sure that multiple typebars are in flight, but arrive at different times (and the spacing can be dependent on how close the typebars are to one another, even). On a manual, you have to have a strong, smooth press to make sure the typebar hits the paper firmly, but you have to make that press consistent between the keystrokes, and you have to control the POSITION of each typebar in flight.  :psyduck:

But, the fastest typists that were trained to that level actually insisted on typebar machines instead of more modern innovations like the Selectric. See, the Selectric is far, far easier for non-skilled typists to use - it could "cache" the next keystroke while the current keystroke was printing, simulating a second typebar in flight without any chance of clashing. But, the fastest that it could run is the equivalent of 186 wpm (a standard word being 5 characters), or to put it a couple other ways, 15.5 characters per second, or 64.5 ms per character. While that's less than the average rate of most fast typists, it IS slower than the burst rate. The Selectric interposer system can only absorb one character in "stroke storage", so if you hit a key, hit another key, and then hit a third key, with less than 129 ms between the first and last keypresses, the Selectric is unable to keep up, and that third key will not depress until 129 ms has passed. I'll note that the fastest typist in the world was Stella Pajunas, and she drove an IBM typebar machine to an average of 216 words per minute, over one minute, in 1946 - faster than the theoretical maximum of the Selectric!

Redball:

--- Quote from: bhtooefr on 16 Apr 2013, 16:47 ---But, the fastest that it could run is the equivalent of 186 wpm (a standard word being 5 characters), or to put it a couple other ways, 15.5 characters per second, or 64.5 ms per character.

--- End quote ---
In another thread a month ago, I was describing the problem with using a duplex teletype machine 55-60 years ago in  Western Union offices. The machines had a maximum rate of 65wpm and locked up if you tried to burst. It made for a very rhythmic typing technique.

mtmerrick:
FYI when i help out at my uncle's office, all the computers there have Logitech K120s.

Nice keyboards, if a little tall on the keys.  :-D

cesium133:
So... on the subject of keyboards, I have three old IBM Model M keyboards that I fished out of a scrap heap, one of which I'm currently typing on. The computers they came with were also in the same heap, but I have enough old computers as it is.

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