from Hacker News

Mavis Beacon was the top typing teacher in the US, then she vanished

by ducaale on 3/13/22, 3:59 PM with 173 comments

  • by JohnBooty on 3/13/22, 5:42 PM

    I 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

  • by cols on 3/13/22, 5:20 PM

    Archive: 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!

  • by interestica on 3/13/22, 5:40 PM

    I 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/). 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.

  • by good8675309 on 3/13/22, 4:44 PM

    On 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

  • by zamadatix on 3/13/22, 4:35 PM

    That site of people trying to find her has some great 90s internet vibes https://seekingmavisbeacon.com/. No blinking sadly.

  • by gcheong on 3/13/22, 4:32 PM

    I was never under the impression that she was a real person. I just assumed she was a marketing persona ala Betty Crocker et al.

  • by cubix on 3/13/22, 4:48 PM

    I 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

  • by unfocussed_mike on 3/13/22, 7:23 PM

    Next, 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

  • by narrator on 3/13/22, 4:47 PM

    "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."

  • by na85 on 3/13/22, 4:44 PM

    We 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!

  • by dudeinjapan on 3/13/22, 5:13 PM

    Francis Bacon teaches metallic transmutation

  • by WhiteOwlEd on 3/13/22, 7:23 PM

    Mavis 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.

  • by dheera on 3/13/22, 4:49 PM

    I'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.

  • by dang on 3/13/22, 5:25 PM

    Past appearances by Mavis:

    Mavis Beacon - 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 - Dec 2020 (58 comments)

  • by gnicholas on 3/13/22, 4:30 PM

  • by LukeShu on 3/13/22, 6:03 PM

    If 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-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.

  • by harel on 3/13/22, 5:51 PM

    Real 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?

  • by dimitrios1 on 3/13/22, 7:00 PM

    I 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?

  • by ghaff on 3/13/22, 5:47 PM

    Unfortunately, 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.)

  • by unsupp0rted on 3/13/22, 5:36 PM

    > 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.

  • by serf on 3/13/22, 6:55 PM

    an 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.

  • by Aardwolf on 3/13/22, 5:23 PM

    Also featured in a Lazy Game Reviews video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-6d6X4E-3w

  • by rvz on 3/13/22, 4:33 PM

    There are three things that kids back then should now know that don't exist: The Tooth-fairy, Santa Claus and Mavis Beacon.

  • by vxNsr on 3/13/22, 5:14 PM

    I don’t know anyone who thought mavis beacon was real, this feels like hype for the documentary and nothing else.

  • by joshu on 3/13/22, 4:44 PM

    what ever happened to carmen sandiego?

  • by softwarebeware on 3/13/22, 5:46 PM

    We also really need to find Carmen Sandiego!! :-p

  • by staticassertion on 3/13/22, 10:49 PM

    The best typing teacher was AIM and Runescape.

  • by riffic on 3/13/22, 9:48 PM

    are people still just now coming to the conclusion this was a fictional character? yikes.

  • by awinter-py on 3/13/22, 10:36 PM

    yes carmen sandiego had a similar thing happen

    ppl are still looking