P C - T O U C H



(C) Copyright 1983 by Dean Hannotte
324 East Ninth Street
New York, NY 10003

PC-TOUCH is a simple program with a simple purpose: to help you practice
touch-typing.

PC-TOUCH will display on the screen lines of text for you to type. You
can't correct mistakes as you go along, because that won't help you learn how
not to make them in the first place. Just do the best you can, and as you
continue you will find yourself making fewer and fewer errors.

As you are typing, PC-TOUCH will update statistics along the bottom two
rows of the screen. On the left you will see the total number of keystrokes
and the total number of erroneous keystrokes. On the right you will see your
typing accuracy (the percentage of keystrokes which have been correct), and
your typing speed in words per minute. The statistics on the left are updated
whenever you press any key, while those on the right are updated whenever you
get to the end of a line. Remember that when you are just learning to type,
accuracy is more important than speed.

To use PC-TOUCH, just key in:

[d:]pc-touch

where: [d:] is the optional drive specification,
a single letter from a to h.

pc-touch is the name of the program DOS will run.

means press the ENTER key.


PC-TOUCH starts by giving you instructions on how to use the program.
Aside from the keys you will use to type the lines of text displayed, there are
only three special keys recognized:

ENTER -- Press this key when you get to the end of each
line.

ESC ---- Press this key when you are done with the program.

F1 ----- Press this key when you want to stop typing for a
while (for example, to answer the phone) and don't
want to lose credit for the elapsed time during
which nothing will be typed. (When you are ready
to restart, just press F1 a second time.)

PC-TOUCH doesn't recognize any other special keys because the idea was to
practice touch-typing in a way that would be valid for ANY keyboard, including
ancient office typewriters you may be stranded with once in a while. (If
people ask for more sensitivity to the special keys on the IBM/PC [like INS,
DEL and the cursor control keys], I'll be glad to include this in a future
release.) PC-TOUCH should work with any display device that supports 80-column
output.

PC-TOUCH is distributed as three files:

PC-TOUCH.EXE -- the executable version of the program.

PC-TOUCH.DOC -- this file, containing documentation. The
program doesn't need this file to operate, so
you can ERASE, RENAME, or archive it.

PC-TOUCH.FIL -- the lines of text that you will type. The
program needs this file to operate, so you must
leave it in a drive addressed by one of the
letters from A through H. PC-TOUCH will chose
the first copy it finds if you have more than
one. This is an ordinary ASCII file, so you can
change the material I've selected or replace it
entirely using any ordinary text editor. Don't
make any line longer than 79 characters. After
you've typed through the entire file, PC-TOUCH
goes back to the beginning and you start over.



PC-TOUCH has been given free of charge and "as is" to the New York IBM
Personal Computer User Group (NYPC) and various bulletin board systems. Please
share it with as many people as you like. If you'd like to suggest enhance-
ments, or just want to talk about it, I can be reached at (212) 674-5848
between 9AM and 9PM E.S.T. I hope you enjoy using PC-TOUCH, and that it helps
improve your typing speed.

Dean Hannotte




njoy using PC-TOUCH, and that it helps
improve your typing sp