Pros: Good lessons. Cons: Slow; minimal entertainment value. Company: MacPlay (714/553-3530). Requires: Mac Plus; 2MB of RAM for color; hard drive; System 6.0.5. List price: $49.95.

MW Rating **

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 2.0

Pros: Well-designed; educational; fun to play. Cons: Insufficient documentation. Company: The Software Toolworks (415/883-3000). Requires: Mac Plus; 2MB of RAM for color; hard drive; System 6.0.7. List price: $49.95.

MW Rating ****

In a recessionary economy, every skill you can add to your rsum counts. Though employment agencies now ask job seekers if they can operate fax machines and modems, they also want to know the bottom line: Can you type?

Both Dvorak on Typing (DOT), named after computer-industry pundit John C. Dvorak, and Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 2.0 guide you through typing lessons and chart your progress, calculating your words per minute and accuracy, and noting your problem keys. Lesson topics include keyboard rows, hand placement, vocabulary, and the ten-key numeric pad. Both programs display charts showing your progress, though Mavis's are substantially more detailed, organized by finger, hand, and row.

DOT has beginner, intermediate, and advanced lessons; the latter two levels require you to take a test to assure that you're up to par. But every time you re-enter DOT and want an intermediate or advanced lesson, you have to take the test, or be limited to beginner lessons. The program didn't remember my typing speed, and when I declined to retake the test, it gave me only beginner lessons. In contrast, Mavis advised me when to up my speed settings, but it didn't make me take a test before I did a drill.

Both programs allow you to customize your lesson. DOT makes you input your lesson directly in the program, while Mavis lets you import text files. Unless you customize your lesson, DOT forces you to type two spaces after a period, a habit I'm trying to break in this age of proportional fonts. Mavis lets you type one space after the period.

Both programs can teach you the Dvorak keyboard layout, a reorganization of the traditional keyboard layout meant to increase your typing speed. (The layout was designed by August Dvorak, no relation to John, in 1930.) MacPlay says a future DOT update will include a file allowing you to use the Dvorak keyboard in all applications. Mavis doesn't work with actual Dvorak keyboards, but the company expects future versions to be compatible. Mavis shows how to position your hands and displays a diagram showing how typists should sit to reduce the physical strain of repetitive motions.

DOT's interface is ugly and DOS-like, though MacPlay promises a redesign. Mavis is more colorful. DOT takes up a whopping 5MB of hard drive space, compared to Mavis's 2MB.

You can select one of three characters, including Dvorak himself, to be your tutor, who comments when you've completed a lesson (it was hard to believe my tutor's remark, "I wish I could type that fast," when I typed 23 wpm). I found the voice irritating, not to mention insincere.

Both programs offer a game when you tire of lessons. In DOT, typing faster encourages a knight to attack a warrior. It's more an animated display than a game, since there's no real objective and no way to win; you can't even watch the action, because you have to read which letters to type.

Mavis includes two games--one for typing lessons and one for the ten-key; both are a lot of fun. For typing lessons, you're driving a race car: the faster you type, the faster you go. If you're working on numbers, Mavis provides you with a temporary job as a grocery clerk. You type in the price of food as it moves along the conveyor belt. If you're correct, the food lands in your recycled paper (not plastic) bag; if you're wrong, it falls to the floor.

If being entertained while learning to type interests you, choose Mavis. It costs the same as DOT, but provides varied environments, interesting lessons, and good games. For $49.95, Mavis is too good a deal to pass up.