History Main / RapidFireTyping

* Spoofed in ''Film/BruceAlmighty''. Bruce, while typing, drinks coffee and looks other way. But in this case, Bruce has {{God}}'s powers...
** [[FridgeLogic Answering millions of prayers/mails still should wear out the keyboard.]] But OK, he can fix that too. Plus, it's most likely a metaphorical keyboard on a metaphorical computer.
*** [[RuleofThree While drinking metaphorical coffee?]]

* In one episode of ''Manga/SailorMoon'', Ami does this with ''one hand'' while eating a dumpling with the other.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'''s "School Reunion" has kids hypnotized into doing this in order to unlock some MacGuffin.

** Similar to the ''Superman'' example above, a Dalek in the eponymous episode hammered through a billion password combinations on a keypad in one second, apparently using directed suction with its sucker hand.
*** Either that, or he was putting electrons directly into the chip (making the entry of that many passwords more plausible than with button-clicking.) Of course, the real question is why the high budget, high security facility doesn't require smartcards in addition to [=PINs=] on the doors... with that setup, there would be quadrillions (or more) of potential card/PIN combinations and even at the CPU's clock speed it would take a significant amount of time (hours or days) to go through them all.

** The Doctor does this a lot, especially in "The Eleventh Hour", where he establishes his identity by typing the ''real'' Fermat's Last Theorem and a proof for faster-than-light travel (with diagrams), and codes a computer virus on a cell phone, in about two minutes. How does he make diagrams by typing really fast?
*** He's coding the diagrams in LaTeX. Or SVG.
** Absolutely everywhere in season 7 mid-series premier, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E06TheBellsOfSaintJohn "The Bells of Saint John."]] The Doctor, Clara, and the villainous organization of the week engage in tons and tons of rapid-fire typing in order to [[HollywoodHacking Hollywood Hack]], counter-hack, and anti-counter-reverse-super hack each other.

* [[LampshadeHanging Semi-lampshaded]] in ''UpInTheAir'' when Natalie was typing on her laptop on the plane. "Are you angry at your keyboard?" "I type with a purpose."

* ''[[VideoGame/HouseOfTheDead The Typing of the Dead: Overkill]]'' generally subverts this in its gameplay, requiring you to type quickly, but to type in phrases to defeat enemies. The FinalBoss is damaged by [[spoiler:typing ''anything'' and hitting Enter, allowing you to play this trope perfectly straight and win, although]] typing words associated with a topic shown on-screen will inflict a CriticalHit.

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When the operator controls the computer by a continuous stream of ''clackity-clackity'' typing.

-->-- '''Kate Libby''', '''''Film/{{Hackers}}''''', after Dade shows off his ultra-rapid typing skills.

* ''[[VideoGame/HouseOfTheDead The Typing of the Dead: Overkill]]'' generally subverts this in its gameplay, requiring you to type quickly, but to type in phrases to defeat enemies. The FinalBoss [[spoiler:is damaged by typing ''anything'' and hitting Enter, allowing you to play this trope perfectly straight and win, although]] typing words associated with a topic shown on-screen will inflict a CriticalHit.

* ''[[VideoGame/HouseOfTheDead The Typing of the Dead: Overkill]]'' generally subverts this in its gameplay, requiring you to type quickly, but to type in phrases to defeat enemies. The FinalBoss [[spoiler:is damaged by typing ''anything'' and hitting Enter, allowing you to play this trope perfectly straight and win, although typing words associated with a topic shown on-screen will inflict a CriticalHit.]]

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman]], Unix hacker and free software activist. MIT's hacker lab where he felt at home was disappearing. Most of the hackers had left for or had been hired by two competing companies -- LMI and Symbolics. Stallman took exception to the last one, because they'd made a friend of his quit. So he did the only thing he could to fight it -- code. For two years, from 1982 to the end of 1983, Stallman worked by himself to clone the output of the Symbolics programmers, with the aim of preventing them from gaining a monopoly on the lab's computers with their proprietary software. If that doesn't sound impressive, think of it this way: he did the programming of ten or so hackers, matching them feature for feature, only stopping to sleep. That's '''''TWO YEARS''''' of RapidFireTyping. This troper has seen the special low-impact keyboard he has to use to type these days.

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Stargate SG-1}}'', Carter, granted SuperSpeed, works on a book about wormhole physics she'd wanted to write for a while, but "didn't have time to." Now, she operates so fast that her hands blur over the keyboard and she occasionally has to stop and wait for the keyboard buffer to clear out. Of course, for all we know, she ''is'' making typos and fixing them; it's just that she's operating very, very, ''very'' fast.

* In one of the ''Nick Burns: Your Company's Computer Guy'' sketches on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', all the computer usage is done through typing. It gets particularly silly when Nick explains how to do something and the actions are all in terms of what to click on, then he does it by typing. Apparently Nick Burns is such a command line purist he can use the mouse from the keyboard!

-->-- '''Kate Libby''', '''''{{Hackers}}''''', after Dade shows off his ultra-rapid typing skills.

*** I use keyboard shortcuts where many people use the mouse. It's faster.

* In one of the ''Nick Burns: Your Company's Computer Guy'' sketches on ''SaturdayNightLive'', all the computer usage is done through typing. It gets particularly silly when Nick explains how to do something and the actions are all in terms of what to click on, then he does it by typing. Apparently Nick Burns is so geeky he can use the mouse from the keyboard!
** You have obviously never encountered a command line purist.

* Celty the [[HeadlessHorseman Dullahan]] in ''{{Durarara}}'' can do this with her PDA. We actually see her typing the same sequence spots over and over; but the keys that she really wants to be pushed light up. Since she has the magic power to put writing where she wants; it's likely an extension of this; as the animation budget is too good for this to be a mistake.

* In WilliamGibson's SprawlTrilogy, even though cyberdecks use a neural interface as a display device, commands are still supposed to be input using a keyboard. Gibson also seemed to be under the impression that the ''timing'' of keystrokes would be an important means of identity verification: for example, the Dixie Flatline never replaced his heart because he didn't want to throw his timing off[[hottip:*: In real life, Morse Code signallers in WorldWarII were sometimes identifiable by their "fist", or, loosely, the timing of their signals]].

* Nanoha has to do this to just scroll down a text file in the third season of ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha''. BridgeBunnies do this all the time, of course, especially when agitated...

* A particularly hilarious example shows up in the WhoopiGoldberg film ''Jumpin' Jack Flash''. Goldberg, who has just been contacted by a spy while putting in some overtime at her work terminal, engages in a friendly chat with the stranger. She rattles off a few seconds of RapidFireTyping and then [[SoundingItOut helpfully narrates]] her response: "Yo."

* Or they simply know the keybaord shortcuts for mouse commands. Alt-tab anyone?
** There are a lot of them. A LOT. Even today it is possible to operate Windows without even having a mouse attached to the computer. It's faster than using a mouse and leaves people

* There are some operating system interfaces (like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openbox Openbox]]) that are meant to be controlled with little mouse operation. Additionally, the tab key can move you across fields, which most people don't know/use. Put the two together and you have a system that can be ran for rather more than average without lifting your hands from the keyboard, all the while typing in shortcuts and URLs and whatnot. To some people, this is a boon; to others, it's merely unusual.

* Princess Peach in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' whenever she types a message to e-mail Mario. Apparently she must have learned speed typing at some point.
** It's a message, not programming -- presumably she thinks about what to write while completing the FetchQuest for permission to send it, and can simply type it straight out.