Touch typing is a style of typing. Although the phrase refers to typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys—specifically, a touch typist will know their location on the keyboard through muscle memory—the term is often used to refer to a specific form of touch typing that involves placing the eight fingers in a horizontal row along the middle of the keyboard and having them reach for specific other keys. Both two-handed touch typing and one-handed touch typing are possible.
Competitive typist Albert Tangora demonstrating his typing in 1938
A touch typing class in a commercial school, Mülheim, Germany c. 1910.
Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro, c. 1999
The Kinesis keyboard
Typing is the process of writing or inputting text by pressing keys on a typewriter, computer keyboard, mobile phone, or calculator. It can be distinguished from other means of text input, such as handwriting and speech recognition. Text can be in the form of letters, numbers and other symbols. The world's first typist was Lillian Sholes from Wisconsin in the United States, the daughter of Christopher Sholes, who invented the first practical typewriter.
Civilian Conservation Corps typing class, 1933
War correspondent typing his dispatch in a wood outside Arnhem, 1944