I'm not that old, but I've been using computers for nearly 20 years, and now I use them daily to make a living. I never learned how to type properly. I took classes a long time ago, but they never stuck. I do a weird combination of knowing where the keys are from experience and just memorizing how to type certain words. The big downside is that I can only look at the screen 50% of the time and so I always have a lot of errors to fix.
Can it be done? Suggestions?
Sure it can be done!
Choose your layout and work through it slowly and precisely with a typing program like
http://www.typefastertypingtutor.com/. At first you will be really slow especially if you are very used to qwerty. I could type without looking but my technique was awful and making my hands tired faster. I decidede to learn colemak and touch typing properly.
24 jan - installed typing tutor
mostly practiced lesson 1 with a bit of 2 and 3. I also played the built in game quite a bit and increased the speed after a bit.
The following dates are very rough:
14 Feb - hit 40 wpm on lesson one and 18 wpm on common words
20 Feb - stopped using qwerty ~ 23 wpm
1 March - hit 30 wpm on common words
11 March - hit 40 wpm on common words
I will say this I spent a lot more time on lesson 1 getting used to tnes perhaps, I only have 90-94% accuracy ~ I use capslock as backspace that alone has made a marked improvement. I have issues hitting some things e.g. (), {} both because its same finger and I think my punctuation and numbers are probably very slow.
At first I felt like it was a pointless battle as I had like gained nothing but being clumsy on the keyboard and couldn't think outside of what I had to type but it is becomming second nature slowly and surely. I don't know how the feck people hit 100wpm though xD.
Hope this helps.