The Mill
The summer of the moon landings, 1969, I had graduated from grade school and was about to start high school. So I took a couple of summer classes at Nicolet High School. The first one was mechanical drawing - this was way before computerized drawing CAD programs of course. But the other course was touch typing. And then I never did any typing again for 4 years ! Also you don't remember touch typing without using it. Finally, touch typing depends a LOT on the particular keyboard layout - muscle memory gets developed and it's hard (at least for me) to shift to a different keyboard on a computer. I never really nailed down touch typing numbers (and certainly shifted number symbols) but now I can sorta no look type but with the caveat of lots of mistakes. I remember a fellow named Tony at GTE would marvel at how fast I could type on the Sentry IC tester terminal and how fast I could make mistakes :)
It turns out that I didn't really ever use the drafting that much after high school but touch typing was (or would have been) useful for a programmer.
Anyway, recently with the Morsle game I did shift over to trying to type the word in rather than writing it down.
My short term memory is poor to the point that so called head copy is impossible. But using the keyboard hasn't helped over using paper/pencil at least for me.
Now I'm thinking of reviving code practice as a part of my daily routine and wondering if I should try to type or stay with the old pencil and paper ?
DOS software: https://archive.org/details/the-mill
remembrance and hints: https://www.arrl.org/news/quot-putting-it-down-quot
One thing about an actual mill (manual typewriter): no electromagnetic interference ! Also, no power or batteries required. There may be an old manual typewriter around here somewhere. I used to have one but threw it away (along with an old Zenith TV) the last move from IL to WI ("three moves are as good as a fire").
Which reminds me: I don't need AI or quantum computing beyond AI. I need a search engine for the stuff I have. I don't need more stuff - just a searchable inventory of what I do have. Anyway, I need to get organized ! (But that'll probably never happen).
Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm
