if you remember dialup, I consider that early. I was uber early
  - nerd to the core. 1989. I learned typing in 7th grade on
  manual typewriters. I remember being annoyed because my mom's
  work had IBM Selectric and those things were FAST.. but NOOOOO,
  they had us learn on ancient things. Poker chips on the back of
  our hand for "proper form". When my 10 yr old nephew had typing
  lessons in the 4th grade, he was pissed because they put disks
  on the back of their hands for proper form. Same stupid
  technique. AND, since he already KNEW how to type a little by
  the age of 7 (I put him in multiplayer games that he'd like were
  relatively safe enough so he had a reason to type to people) -
  he developed his own four finger technique that was faster than
  homekeys. Still, he became fastest typer even with the home keys
  but at home, he still uses the method he liked better. Yeah, I
  have issues with the "chips on the back of the hand" thing. My
  2nd piano teacher also did that to me. To this day, I don't use
  the form she tried to force on me. smile emoticon