> On Jan 26, 2023, at 2:39 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org
> <mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org>> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 26 Jan 2023, Steve Lewis via cctalk wrote:
>> I recently came across the old H.S. yearbook of my grandmother from 1940s,
>> and it had a report/atrticle of a typing-class (all female; it mentioned
>> there were two males but they dropped out of the class), and the young
>> ladies had won a regional contest at a blazing speed of ~20 wpm. I
>> recall actually using a typewriter long ago, and I recall there being an
>> implicit speed limit because if you went too fast, the metal hammers would
>> bind up -- so I imagine in the 1940s the mechanical design of consumer/H.S.
>> grade typewriters maybe wasn't the best (so 20wpm then maybe was
>> reasonable).
>
> Half a century ago, professional typists would strive for, and maybe succeed
> at 100 WPM.
I believe professionals routinely achieved that speed, certainly on electric
typewriters; non-electric ones would be a bit harder.
> The IBM selectric mechanism could handle 14.8 characters per second, about
> 150 WPM. At GSFC, one guy managed to get a selectric terminal up to about
> twice that (300 baud?), but soon, the [APL] typeball flew off across the
> room. There was some discussion of competing for distance.
>
> I knew a professional typist, working for my book publisher, who, on the
> right machines (Linoterm) could average 150 WPM for an 8 hour day. At the
> end of the day, she had little or no remembrance of what she had typed.
> On conventional consumer Selectrics, she would wear one out in weeks.
Wow.
Data point: the PLATO system (University of Illinois) had a typing speed test
program with a challenging wrinkle: if you mistyped any letter it would erase
the current word entirely so you'd have to start over. And since it was a
competitive game, it kept records. Those still exist; there are a couple of
entries that seem to be robots, but the highest that seems real is 122 wpm and
a dozen or so are over 100. (Mine is 75.8).
paul
