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Mavis Beacon was the top typing teacher in the US, then she vanished
- zamadatix 5y agoThat site of people trying to find her has some great 90s internet vibes https://seekingmavisbeacon.com/ https://seekingmavisbeacon.com/. No blinking sadly.
- gnicholas 5y agohttps://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Famericas%2Fmavis-beacon-teaches-typing-real-b2034472.html https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%...
- gcheong 5y agoI was never under the impression that she was a real person. I just assumed she was a marketing persona ala Betty Crocker et al.
- vmception 5y agoFta: you’re correct
- smegsicle 5y ago
- RobertMiller 5y agoIt was a somewhat popular name for girls in the 30s and 40s. Mavis Beacon came out in the late 80s, one of the programmers might well have had a mother or aunt named Mavis.
- vmception 5y ago(or just heard the name as not uncommon so it fit when they pulled it out of their mental random name generator)
- lazide 5y agoProbably also somewhere between ‘so common it can’t be trademarked’ and ‘so uncommon it sounds bizarre and not like it could be a real person’.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago>one of the programmers might well have had a mother or aunt named Mavis. Or a typing teacher.
- mmcgaha 5y agoOr a dead milkmen album: "somebody kicked my dog Mavis and I'm gonna find out just who the hell it was"
- Tagbert 5y agoYou would be missing the amazing Mavis Staples https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuCF7BtGrEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuCF7BtGrEI
- ralusek 5y agoYou're telling me that she's American McGee rather than Carmen San Diego? Sid Meier rather than Dr. Grordbort?
- lupire 5y ago*Sandiego. And vice versa.
- rvz 5y agoThere are three things that kids back then should now know that don't exist: The Tooth-fairy, Santa Claus and Mavis Beacon.
- compiler-guy 5y agoCarmen San Diego also.
- RobertMiller 5y agoCountless hours of Number Munchers taught me mental arithmetic.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- joshu 5y agowhat ever happened to carmen sandiego?
- aceazzameen 5y agoYou mean where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? She's at Netflix.
- techsupporter 5y agoAll these people want to know, "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" That game show on PBS was my favorite and I was genuinely sad when Lynne Thigpen died. That show got me into Jeopardy!, and then into the trivia group I found on a local discussion forum, and then through a friendship made there into the job I've had for many years. Hit it, Rockapella.
- radnor 5y agoThere was Carmen Sandiego cast reunion yesterday with Rockapella and Greg Lee! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb6FViINc9I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb6FViINc9I
- techsupporter 5y agoThis is incredible, thank you for the link.
- whitej125 5y agoShe was captured in Argentina attempting to steal Iguazu Falls [0]. Fortunately a couple of super sleuths [1] were tipped off about the soon-to-be caper by none other than Dr. Brain [2]. I miss the educational games of the 90s. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Sandiego_(video_game_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Sandiego_(video_game_se... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Mountain! [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_Dr._Brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_Dr._Brain
- na85 5y agoWe had a copy of Mavis Beacon but I never really used it. What taught me typing: 1. Flirting with the girl I later married over ICQ 2. Getting rushed and begging for help in StarCraft 1 Both things require timely and efficient typed communication!
- vmception 5y agoTrying to keep up with file servers and conversation on IRC taught me to type fast! Sink or swim scenarios work best for me.
- na85 5y agoYes, the glory days of game rips (sorry, gamez and ripz) on DALnet channels full of uber-leet color codes and DCC-based fserv interfaces. I miss the old internet.
- kevinventullo 5y agoI believe AIM did more to teach my entire graduating class how to type than any educational software.
- Dalrymple 5y agoMy graduating class learned to type by producing thousands of punch cards on the IBM 026 punch card machine.
- joshspankit 5y agoYou married over ICQ? If so, that’s quite notable!
- na85 5y agoNo no, I meant the messaging was conducted over ICQ.
- good8675309 5y agoOn a somewhat related note, if you’re teaching your kids typing the current Mavis Beacon software has broken DRM purchased straight from Amazon. I was told by their support to buy it again directly from their website. I recommend the much superior Typing.com
- etataetaet 5y agoTyping.com and nitrotype are AMAZING tools to learn how to type
- narrator 5y ago"The Spectacle is not a collection of images but a social relation among people mediated by images." - Guy Debord You could literally write a PhD thesis on this Mavis Beacon thing by running it through the lense of Debord's "Society of the Spectacle."
- _3u10 5y agoThrough that lens she’s more real than most. I loved his idea that JFK eulogized his own funeral.
- oh_sigh 5y agoOut of curiosity, have you ever publicly referred to the Society of the Spectacle more than 3 months ago? For whatever reason, I am seeing all sorts of references all over the internet to Debord and SotS in the past couple months, and I'm just trying to track down why this is happening. I don't think this is a yellow car phenomenon because I've been into Situationism for the past 20 years and am fairly attuned to references to it that I stumble across.
- narrator 5y agoI think the "Contain" podcast (https://podbay.fm/p/contain-podcast https://podbay.fm/p/contain-podcast) got me into it originally. It has a lot of guests who reference stuff like "commodity fetishism" and I just started looking that up to figure out what they were talking about and this eventually led to Debord. As an aside, The "Contain" podcast is great. Lots of interviews with lots of unusual intellectual people.
- 8b16380d 5y agoDebord has been a well known figure in far right circles for a while now
- antioedipus 5y agoThis website never fails to amuse me… What is the intention of this comment? That Debord is “far right” or a reactionary? That people who read him are? That it’s interesting that a Marxist philosopher is read by reactionaries?
- cubix 5y agoI guess now I know the story behind this flyer I saw in a Bay Area shop window a little over a year ago: https://files.catbox.moe/48giot.jpeg https://files.catbox.moe/48giot.jpeg
- dheera 5y agoI'm in my 30s and I grew up at a time in grade school when computers and internet access were just becoming more and more popular, but typing wasn't specifically a necessity for school. As such I'm EXTREMELY GLAD that I had the choice to learn how to type on my own and made a conscious choice to learn Dvorak instead of QWERTY. I feel that kids these days are forced into QWERTY as part of curriculum and I think that's a terrible forced propagation of a shitty standard.
- caymanjim 5y agoThere's no good evidence that Dvorak is better for either speed or RSI.
- dheera 5y agoSo what? There's no good evidence for QWERTY and it's based on assumptions about mechanical typewriters that are no longer true whereas Dvorak is at least based on something that applies to modern life. There's adecnotal evidence of both in favor of Dvorak which is more than good enough for me. Anyway, it was super easy to learn, I was lightyears ahead of my classmates in touch typing, so I'm happy.
- lazide 5y agoWell, if you do something that doesn’t match what 90% (or for Dvorak, more like 99.99%) of society does, especially if it is in a way that is incompatible, you end up having to do both ways or suffer significant friction in everyday life if it is a common skill or requirement. It does open some unique niches, but it’s also easy to oversell that advantages while ignoring the disadvantages. Dvorak is even less useful than being a leftie (since lefties still have the same hands in the same orientation), it’s more like if someone switched/mirrored the hands themselves. Which, if everyone had the same setup would be fine. But since not everyone does, better get used to constantly switching and adjusting things.
- dheera 5y ago
- vxNsr 5y agoI don’t know anyone who thought mavis beacon was real, this feels like hype for the documentary and nothing else.
- rvz 5y agoIndeed. It is just hype and that's it. The people who are investigating over this are trying to turn a non-issue into an industry problem. With them, everything is always a problem with no solutions and all it is about is just complaining. Especially about a character that doesn't even exist. Somehow it is a problem. But don't worry. Maybe one day, the Mavis Beacon actor might consider releasing an NFT collection for all her fans. Someday.
- oh_sigh 5y agoIs this really a topic you've interrogated your friends about? Why would you know anyone's perspective on Mavis Beacon? I thought Mavis Beacon was real back in the day, because why wouldn't she be? It was just a nice looking lady, not like a cartoon character who teaches you typing or anything like that. I assumed maybe she was just a world class typer when I was 10 or so. If it is obvious that Mavis Beacon isn't real to some, I would love to know how they understand that Mavis is fake, but, say, the guy on the "Norton Utilities", "Norton Antivirus" is a real person.
- vxNsr 5y agoFirstly, I think we all need to take a deep breath a step back. You’re coming at me very aggressively, I don’t know what trauma I exposed for you, but please forgive me. Secondly, mavis beacon is something that featured very prominently in my age group, and thus I’ve reminisced about it with friends and colleagues, no one referred to it as anything more than a program. I have no idea where Norton figures into this. But you mentioning it makes me think you’re just trolling.
- dudeinjapan 5y agoFrancis Bacon teaches metallic transmutation
- selimthegrim 5y agoOutside the OJ trial on a sign - "Save the Juice! Bacon Did It" (playing on the Shakespeare conspiracy theory)
- cols 5y agoArchive: https://web.archive.org/web/20220313160742/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mavis-beacon-teaches-typing-real-b2034472.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220313160742/https://www.indep... Mavis Beacon taught me to type. I don't really care if she's real or not, I'll always have a soft spot for that CD!
- Ansil849 5y ago> I don't really care if she's real or not I don't understand comments like this. Why go through the effort of articulating your lack of interest in a topic? "I have no intellectual curiosity about this topic, but I figure I should still comment letting the world know I have no interest in this".
- interestica 5y agoI think you missed the point of the comment. I don't think this is a lack of interest in the topic per se -- it's demonstrating that when using the software, there was a clear separation between the 'teacher' and just using the software. I had no idea she was a 'real' person (or interpreted as such anyways) and always presumed it was just a 'character'.
- Jaruzel 5y agoI think something is lost in translation here, the OP is saying that emotionally it doesn't matter to them if she wasn't real, they still hold her in high regard. They are not saying, "I have no interest in this."
- cjaybo 5y ago"They taught me how to type" sounds a lot more like fond recollection than disinterest to me, but I guess we all read things differently. Your way seems needlessly uncharitable, though!
- michaelcampbell 5y ago> I don't understand comments like this. Interestingly, I suspect you understand it fully.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Aardwolf 5y agoAlso featured in a Lazy Game Reviews video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-6d6X4E-3w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-6d6X4E-3w
- dang 5y agoPast appearances by Mavis: Mavis Beacon - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28767251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28767251 - Oct 2021 (4 comments) What's Mavis Beacon Up to These Days? (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25530183 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25530183 - Dec 2020 (58 comments)
- unsupp0rted 5y ago> Incarnating Mavis was a Haitian-born woman called Renee L’Esperance, spotted behind a cosmetics counter at Saks Fifth Avenue by one of the men behind the company that sold Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.
- interestica 5y agoI had no idea there was a potential "real person" there any more than I thought Mario/Luigi were real. Maybe I'd never even seen an image or box to make that connection? I remember that the software was really useful early on -- and game modes even made it a bit competitive. For a left-field alternative for super young kids (3? 4?) just being introduced to letters/keyboard try out Typatone (https://typatone.com/ https://typatone.com/). Get a wireless keyboard and throw it up on a big screen. Something interesting happens when there's the added layer of reactive sound tied to what they've typed. It's a really good way of recognizing letters, and learning where to find them on a keyboard. And then common words take on a specific "song". There's probably something to this in an education space for someone to build on.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoIt has been claimed Mario is based on someone that worked for (edit: rented property to) Nintendo. Not sure I belive that though. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/02/663372770/mario-segale-inspiration-for-nintendos-hero-plumber-has-died https://www.npr.org/2018/11/02/663372770/mario-segale-inspir...
- LukeShu 5y agoI've never heard that the character was "based on" Mario Segale, just named after him. It is my dim recollection from reading Game Over by David Sheff many years ago that the incident when "Segale was said to have made an impression on his tenants when he allegedly stormed into Nintendo's offices in Tukwila, Wash., demanding they catch up on late rent" (as the NPR article writes) happened when they already had the Donkey Kong cabinets in their final form. The article from Benj Edwards cited at the end of the NPR article says > Legend has it that NOA President Minoru Arakawa noticed physical similarities between Donkey Kong’s short, dark-haired protagonist and the landlord. So the crew at NOA nicknamed the character Mario, and it stuck. And that seams eminently plausible to me; that someone said to Shigeru Miyamoto (Mario's creator) "hey, they guys at the American office have started calling the character 'Mario' because he looks like our landlord who is named Mario" and Miyamoto ran with it.
- JohnBooty 5y agoI told a coworker that I was dismayed to learn that Mavis Beacon wasn't real. She had a good laugh at my expense. her: "Really??? You thought she was a real person? JOHN. Come on." me: "I thought she was a real person, like Orville Redenbacher. I didn't know she was made up like Betty Crocker." her: "WAIT, BETTY CROCKER WASN'T REAL??" oh, the laughs
- interestica 5y agoThere's probably a list somewhere. Aunt Jemima? Uncle Ben? Colonel Sanders? Betty Crocker? The Quaker oats guy?
- Jtsummers 5y agoA couple lists from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Female_characters_in_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Female_characters_in_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Male_characters_in_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Male_characters_in_ad... Unfortunately they mix the obviously fictional in with the less obviously fictional (like cartoon characters with more plausible characters).
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoWendy Thomas is real though.
- ghaff 5y agoUnfortunately, I never learned to touch type though I'm pretty fast so long as I'm not copying something. I don't think I ever touched a typewriter until senior year in high school and touch typing never seemed a sufficient priority to me to deliberately learn it. (Shorthand would probably have been useful too at various times.)
- raegis 5y agoI used to think the same. When I was in my 20s, I could type super-fast with 4-6 fingers. But then old age hit. My hand-eye coordination and reflexes slowed down, along with typing speed. I'm slowly learning to touch type, and it helps tremendously.
- softwarebeware 5y agoWe also really need to find Carmen Sandiego!! :-p
- theandrewbailey 5y agoSomeone did: Janine LaManna https://www.huffpost.com/entry/carmen-sandiego-found_n_578e6f4fe4b07c722ebc73ca https://www.huffpost.com/entry/carmen-sandiego-found_n_578e6...
- harel 5y agoReal or not, I owe Mavis my touch typing ability. It's kinda like the "are we in a simulation" argument - does it matter if we are, if we can touch type like Mavis Beacon?
- LukeShu 5y agoIf anyone else is confused by some of the years in the article, I have submitted the following to The Independent: Subject: Inaccuracy in article on Mavis Beacon The article at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mavis-beacon-teaches-typing-real-b2034472.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mavis-beac... states that The Software Toolworks was "founded in 1990." I believe this to be a mistake; it does not make sense in the context of the article discussing things that they did in 1986 and 1987. Wikipedia tells me that The Software Toolworks was founded in 1980.
- serf 5y agoan aside, I miss old Broderbund software. I'm no longer of 'in-education' age so my opinion may be way off , but Broderbund seemed to fill an educational niche that is no longer as explored as it was.
- dimitrios1 5y agoI remember at some point in middle school in the early 90s we had typing instruction in the form of some sort of car drag racing video game. It was actually quite fun and motivated me to type correctly! The faster and more accurately you typed, the faster your car went. And you could use the money you won from winning to upgrade you car, or purchase faster ones. Does anyone remember this?
- codingclaws 5y agoI still play: https://play.typeracer.com https://play.typeracer.com
- BenjiWiebe 5y agoThat doesn't let you upgrade cars to faster ones though.
- homonculus1 5y agoDid it also have horses?
- WhiteOwlEd 5y agoMavis Beacon taught my how to type between 60-75 wpm. The dictate feature of Microsoft Word within Office 365 gets me roughly to 100 wpm after corrections. Bottom line: Mavis Beacon helped me code faster, but Microsoft helped me write blogs faster.
- jker 5y agoThis is always interesting to me: I find that I can't dictate at all, I need to see the words and read them as I'm writing them, for some reason. Especially for writing fiction, it's just hard to imagine saying it out loud, I feel like that would engage a different and "wrong" part of my brain.
- WhiteOwlEd 5y agoWhen I am coding, I feel the need to "type it out." If I am writing blogs or if I'm writing scripts, I find that I can dictate much faster and then just edit the sentences afterwards in order to clarify. The process of dictation plus editing is faster for me than if I were to type out everything.
- unfocussed_mike 5y agoNext, we track down Waldo and ask him how it feels that people don't know he actually goes by Wally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where's_Wally%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where's_Wally%3F
- riffic 5y agoare people still just now coming to the conclusion this was a fictional character? yikes.
- awinter-py 5y agoyes carmen sandiego had a similar thing happen ppl are still looking
- staticassertion 5y agoThe best typing teacher was AIM and Runescape.