Surprised nobody else mentioned this, so I will show how old I am. :-) I learned to touch type in the early 1980's in California. On manual typewriters with b

Surprised nobody else mentioned this, so I will show how old I am. :-) I learned to touch type in the early 1980's in California. On manual typewriters with blank keys. For the first month or so we were required to follow lessons that were on a wall in front of us, so looking at the keys and back was practically impossible. There was also a key chart on the wall for reference. Once we had the basics of touch typing down, we would work from lesson books propped up next to the typewriters. Correction was not an option: if you made a mistake you could start over or lose points. I would start over. This didn't make me an especially fast young typist but it did make me an accurate one. After learning this way I did a lot of writing on the glorious IBM Selectric and got fast. Since the typewriters had no markings whatsoever on the keys, and I went to a small school with no money for special kit, I assume this is just the way typing was taught in America for some time, and around the 1980's they started teaching it less and/or differently. Now, a million years later, I still love manual typewriters. All this computer work has made me a fast but somewhat sloppy typist. The "delete" key changed the incentives.